


Fen'harel's Traveling Eluvian

by lecherysweet



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Book rewrite set in Thedas, F/M, Fluff, Howl's Moving Castle AU, Slow Burn, based on the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:19:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lecherysweet/pseuds/lecherysweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's strange, definitely. Perhaps the silliest thing she has ever seen, this mirror. It doesn't show a reflection, no, and its feet are made of winding pieces of metal and swirling casted brass. She wonders for a moment how it possibly prances up and down the edges of Sundermount without tipping over. She has tipped over, herself, already. Ellana knows legends of the one beyond the mirror's surface - the Wicked Wizard Fen'harel, ever hunting and never finding his precious glowing balls.</p>
<p>She'll never not snicker at the thought. <i>Glowing balls!</i></p>
<p>Touching the surface of the mirror, it stops, glows, and the glass disappears revealing a door. Fingers wrap around the knob, turns it, and she throws it wide.</p>
<p>After Ellana crosses the threshold, the glass seals securely behind her. </p>
<p>A Howl's Moving Castle AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Eldest Sister

Ellana is the eldest.

What exactly does that mean anyway? Not much in the way of things, she supposes, but enough. Enough to be resigned to whatever is the way of those things that just happen, and of course, it is only those things that she can do. It is this, and only this, that will fit her – sewing and sewing and –

She snatches her hand back when she pricks her fingers on a hat pin. _I know better,_ she scolds herself, and tells herself to not even grimace at the pain for such a motion is for those who truly did not deserve the prick. What is a hat maker’s daughter doing with such a silly thought?

Glancing at her step-mother, instead of seeking comfort, Ellana wraps the offended finger up and hides it back in her work.

First is the day the youngest leaves them, and she is glad for her. She deserves no less, does she not? Because she is the youngest, and the young has the most potential. Ellana has no potential, because she is the eldest, and bound in life to be unsuccessful. No, she is morose where her sister is happy and pleasant conversation, full of vibrancy. She does not seem to want to go, no, but it’s because she is young yet and would rather stay with her sisters instead.

And so, Merrill is sent to the old Witch Wynne at the Circle of Magi so that she will learn magic with all her possessions packed into a single box and a handful of silvers to the carriage boy. She cries and clings as they get her on the carriage and her things, but once she is seated she sniffles and lets not one more tear drop from her eyes.

Father is gone, after all, and they must survive somehow.

Ellana supposes their Mother is smart, getting apprenticeships for each of them so that they would be cared for in the absence of their Father. He has only been two weeks buried, though, and it is disconcerting to think that she worries for money first. It is a very adult issue to think on, Ellana concludes, and vows not to judge her for her decision since she is the one who must make it. They, the children, would not even wonder about something like this.

The next is the middle child, beautiful to look at and charismatic, but more so studious. Not as many prospects because she is the middle child, but intelligent all the same. She accepts her fate as it is given to her easily enough, even as her eyes harden with the prospect of it. Knowing something that she did not, of course, as it always is between the three. Despite all of it, she uses a pillowcase to pile her things into, and slips the boy next door a few coppers to help her carry it to the bakery two blocks down.

Velanna turns and makes a small wave goodbye, jaw tight and set. Then she goes, and Ellana has no time to be sad really because Summer’s Day was soon to arrive.

She is to apprentice their Mother in the shop, making hats. But as a hat maker’s daughter, she has been making hats almost her entire life and she does not really need the apprenticeship, not really. The most that she must be taught is how to treat customers.

After the first few days, however, Mother does not allow Ellana on the sales floor and instead puts her in the back in order to have her make more hats. It is just as well, Ellana thinks, because she is the eldest and not as pretty as the others. She does not make as good of conversation as her sister Merrill might have and she certainly cannot charm them like her sister Velanna and so she is better suited to being in the back while Mother tends to the shop.

It continues like this for several days, as they get busier and busier the closer to Summer’s Day that it comes. Ellana takes up listening to the gossip around the sales floor through her curtains that she works behind and talks to the hats in the meantime.

Hawke has taken a lover, they say, a pretty elf of tan skin and iridescent tattoos all over his body that make him look deliciously dangerous. It is because of a particularly beautiful bonnet, they say, and it is the bonnet that her Mother makes her create five more of, and they sell almost immediately that day.

So, this is where she is now, in the middle of the night sewing by mage light in order to finish enough hats for tomorrow’s flock who will assuredly come in for the gossamer aquamarine wide-brimmed hat that Madame de Fer wore at the last meeting of the Council of Heralds. She is not on the Council, of course, but that has never mattered much really when it came to her. Not at all.

A lively pink and a warm ivory flower sewn over the bright yellow silk ribbon. Hunter’s green with a touch of purple and a spray of baby’s breath. Summer’s white with a nautical navy blue ribbon and a bright gold starfish. Pleated silk into the brim of an ivory bonnet, another one mushroom purple-brown-ivory, a mysterious color of beauty and timeless fashion.

“Someone wealthy will buy you and wear you to some outdoor affair,” she says to the mushroom colored bonnet. “Only wealthy people are happy wearing colors like this.”

It seems that the bonnet does not mind being talked to, having not moved or curled or bound. She takes it as good sign and picks up the next hat in order to start forming it around the base.

“You’re going to be a bowler cap, but I will use a lighter fabric than usual to make it dainty and pretty and beautiful.”

The Witch of the Wilds is talked about overmuch, she thinks, when ladies come into the shop and see each other, huddling into the corner to whisper. It is said that even speaking about her may summon her after all. She is a dreadfully jealous creature, they say, with unrivaled beauty and power, one of them to shapeshift into any form she desires. It is possible that you could be speaking to her right now and you would never know. Lying in wait for some minor offense that she could place a spell on you for.

It has been a long time since she has come out of the Wilds, however, and this has alarmed many. There is a war looming on the horizon with the Qunari taking up much space and the Chantry members complaining about people converting to the Qun, the Vicount commanding all of the mages from the entire Free Marches and asking them for defense. He has asked for the famed Wizard Fen’harel to join them, who has apparently not arrived.  

The Vicount’s son has disappeared after some heavy disagreement, it seems, and it has been several months before he has returned. They had suspected he had converted himself, and the Chantry Mothers are more than ready to send the Templars after the Qunari. If only they could win. It is a futile effort, everyone knows that, so there is no use. Regardless, they try to intimidate, instigate a fight much further than it needs to be.

Well, that’s what is whispered, at least.

“It is what it is,” she says to the navy ribbon as she wraps it and carefully sews it down. “If I were him, I would not want to go to the Vicount either. He does not seem the most trustworthy of people.”

There is more gossip from the other side of the curtain, she hears, the writer that lives in the tavern in Darktown has begun writing a new book and it is as racy as the last. This time it is based off of the life of the Warden, but loosely.

“It is about time that Serah Varric began another story,” she says to the hat on the molding stand, smoothing her hands over the wet straw. “Though, have we not heard about the Warden enough?”

The days continue this way, and Ellana starts to talk more and more to the hats until she starts to think of herself as a complete, old hag. She doesn’t go outside and she doesn’t even talk to customers now, she does not even visit her sister Velanna. As much as she wants to she can’t get herself to go outside, and she finds more and more work to do in order to avoid it.

“I will go to visit my sister on Summer’s day,” she vows to the crêpe-y gauze hat in front of her as she sews flowers into its side. “Because I should – I can try to be a good sister, after all.”

When the head of the Guard comes and buys the Summer’s white and navy nautical hat, she smiles warmly at the other unfortunate soul. Aveline is a kind person, and she wishes her all the best, even though none of the hats truly fit her. She is too brawny and un-ladylike for these sorts of things, but Aveline picks and buys a hat anyway, and goes on her way with an awkwardness that Ellana only sees in herself, usually.

_Perhaps she is an eldest sister, also._

So when the morning before Summer’s Day has arrived and women burst into the shop demanding the white and sea fairing hat, she is perplexed. They tell her that none other than Aveline has been swept away by a handsome beau, a man of perfect hair and perfect muscles. He is also in the City Guard, a particularly honorable one at that, and if that hat can fetch Aveline a beau as him that she is unworthy of, then could they fetch one even better?

At first Ellana bristles. Is it possible that Aveline’s personality was one of nobility? Perhaps it is what drew them together, and not the hat. But she says it to the next hat she makes, and not to the offending woman hovering at the edge of the store. She wishes the store attendant, Orana, would kick her out but she knows just how rude and bad for business that would be. And Mother isn’t here to care for it.

She should be back by now, shouldn’t she?  

It is another thing that isn’t her business, really, because what she does is makes hats. And so she continues to work on making a duplicate, but alas since they are made by hand they are never exactly the same, not really anyway, and picky customers can often find the differences. And then she must say, in a practiced nice voice high and not at all pretty, “You don’t want to be a clone of everyone else now, do you? This one fits you much better than hers, don’t you think?”

This settles things enough, usually. The day moves along and she makes more white and navy hats with different anchors, starfish, and seashells as she has until she runs out.

Summer’s Day arrives. It is a fresh sort of day, and there is a festival outside. Instantly she regrets her decision to see her sister today, but Orana has the day off and she does not want to deal with selling hats herself. The sea of people is thick and it waves as if it is on the brink of a storm and it has her standing at the edge of her door for a long moment.

“Maybe if I run…” she says to the grey shawl she wraps about her shoulders, gripping it tightly to her neck. “It is only two blocks, I should be shamed, really. As the eldest sister.”

It is what she does, then, pressing herself against the walls of the shops and catching her breath from the claustrophobic binding of her chest.

A young man stops her halfway, while she was resting on a doorway, pretty and dressed shimmering from head to toe. “Would you like to go to the festival with me?” he asks, with a hand held out covered in a glittering white glove.

Flustered, Ellana shakes her head immediately, her grey dress and her grey shawl definitely not suited to being with this beautiful gentlemen - with his sharp cheekbones and perfectly manicured dreadlocks, his dark green cloak with golden patterns so intricate she could get lost in them. 

“Will you allow me to at least accompany you to where you are going? You seem so afraid.”

“Oh no! It’s not far!” she shrieks, and in a billow of red-gold hair, runs away.

It takes longer than it should in order to get to the shop because of pushing through the throng of people, but she makes it, and finds her sister serving cakes over the counter.

“Velanna!” she calls, waving a hand over the crowd.

“Ellana!” Turning, her sister grabs someone close by and whispers to them, and they nod, grinning widely. “Sorry, I’m taking a break!” She says to one of the young men at the counter.

“But I want to be served by you, Velanna!”

“Let me see my sister,” she scolds, all friendly smiles. “It’s Summer’s Day after all!”

It takes some elbowing through the crowd, but she is able to drag Ellana under the counter and through to the back. She pulls a crate over, so that she is able to sit Ellana down, and takes down a sweet cake from the racks. “You’re going to need this. Sit!”

Ellana does as she is told, because it is what she does best. She is looking forward to the sweet cakes, after all, and thought before to buy her own.

“How are you, Ellana?” Fingers skimmed her knees, over the grey dress, as Velanna leaned forward. “There’s a lot of talk about the hat shop! It seems you’re doing very well!”

“Business has been busy, yes,” is all she can say, because she does not really know how well it is going save for how much work she has to do each night and how many hours of sleep she gets.

“You don’t know do you?”

“Know what?”

Velanna sighs.

“Look, look at me, can’t you tell? I’m not Velanna, I’m Merrill!”

There a bit of a gasp, and Ellana reels back with wide eyes and her sweet cake almost forgotten. Of course she is Velanna, however, because she is as pretty as she has ever been and the sweetest face and her – oh her eyes! They are green instead of the brown they shared. Merrill’s green eyes, the eyes of her step-mother.

“How – but – why –“

“You know that Velanna is better suited to learning! Mother only sent her here because she knew she would meet a lot of men and have a suitable marriage.” Her hands waved irritably. “I found a book in old Witch Wynne’s library that taught us the spell and I practiced for a few weeks. Then I asked her if I could come home. She thought I was homesick, most likely, because she’s a sweet old woman if not a little oblivious. Then Velanna went back in my place.”

“But what about you Merrill?”

“I love it here!” Her hands were speaking for her with an enthusiasm that wouldn’t come out of Velanna’s smooth reservation. “I have always been much better with my hands. She’s never thought to look at what we actually are good at, you know. And I know I have aptitude towards magic, but not like Velanna. I didn’t like studying much, you know.”

“Yes, but,” Ellana tries to interject, but Merrill’s voice bowls her over.

“Look at you! What are you wearing? Why have you taken so long to visit me?” She tugs this time at Ellana’s grey dress, and her grey shawl, and looks thoroughly appalled. “Besides, Ellana, she’s working you to death while she goes around having fun. The shop is doing exceptionally well, didn’t you know? She’s going to buy a mansion in High Town soon.”

Ellana mulls over it for a moment, her head lulling to one side. “She has been dealing with a lot lately, with Father’s death and the work of finding us jobs. Of course she would want to do something for herself.”

“Ellana –” Merrill practically snaps at her. “Do you even get a wage?”

“Well, no, I’m… an apprentice.”

“ _I get a wage, and I’m an apprentice, too.”_ She emphasizes, a finger poking her knee as she enunciates each word. “She’s making a fortune off of you, and spending it around town buying new dresses and hats from the more expensive shops in High Town and trying to find a new husband. And you don’t even get a wage, Ellie!”

The nickname was distinctly Merrill’s, making Ellana wilt. With a sigh, her head shook a bit, not exactly sure what to do with the information. She hadn’t really taken notice, but Mother rarely came home these days except to deliver the silks for the hats.

“You deserve more in life than just that stupid hat shop,” she finishes, finding Ellana’s hand even with her sticky sweet cake fingers that was somehow finished but she doesn’t remember eating it. “Really, Ellana. You deserve more than that.”

And then Merrill in Velanna’s body had to go back to work. Ellana returned to the hat shop, and even though they were closed for the night, she worked late by mage light to finish a few more before sleeping.

The next day when Mother arrived to deliver the silks, she asked her about a wage.

“Oh of course, I will sort everything out as soon as I balance the books,” with a smile and a hug and some reassurance. It left Ellana satisfied, and she went back to work with new gusto. Maybe Merrill and Velanna were wrong.

But then a week passed before Mother even came back to the shop, and she had never balanced the books in the first place, and Ellana had to revisit the thought and shake it away because the last thing that she wanted to think was that she was getting taken advantage of.

It would suit her though, would it not? The fruitless eldest.

Nevertheless, it begins to bother her, and changes her mood. Orana gets married and the shop is left to her alone, and she is not good with customers, no. So one day when someone brings back their hat and complains, she’s not very good with the response.

The dowdy woman holds one of the nautical hats, its white slightly darkened from whatever she was able to get it into and Ellana can tell immediately that she has not taken good care of it. “It has been two weeks and no man has noticed me in this hat! I want my money back!” she screeches.

And Ellana cannot hold her tongue – what comes out of her mouth is a frustrated jumble. “Maybe it’s not the hat but your face that prevents you from catching your fish,” her hands on her hips.

A gasp, as she raises her nose like the proper society that she is pretending to be, and covers her mouth with a gloved hand. In the summer. _Who wears gloves in the summer?_ “How dare you speak to me that way! I am a paying customer!”

“You mean, a customer who ruins a beautiful hat and demands their money back like an insolent child. A hat will not make you more beautiful, or a better person at that,” she snaps, taking the hat from the woman and stuffing it into the trash.

“You’re refusing me a refund?” the woman exclaims.

“I am refusing you any kind of service. Kindly remove yourself from my shop and do not return.”

She huffs, turns on a high heel, and storms out of the shop with a series of curses. Ellana uses a foot to push the hat further into the trash and suddenly regrets the weight of her ill temper. A rude word, a customer lost, she knows.

But she is the eldest, and it is only customary that she would be the harsh one. All scratchy on the edges.

Of course, when she is in the worst mood she has probably ever been in, that is when her most important customer comes in. She is tall and sleek, in black from head to toe, red here and there and a large brimmed black hat over luxurious white hair. The man who steps in with her looks duly irritated, and she is sure he has a good reason for it since the air around this woman is no less than high maintenance.

“Show me your hats,” she says with a wave of her hand. No chit chat or preamble, at least.

Ellana employs the techniques her mother taught her, giving her the least suiting hat for her first, so once they find the right hat she will have a comparison, a moment of revelation. It is her job to know which hat that is the instant she walks into the store, of course, and Ellana already knows she has no hats at all to fit this woman.

It seems the woman knows this too.

After every hat in the store is placed on her head, the woman grouses, “How dare you pit your hat shop against mine when it is no where near?”

“I have done no such thing!” She had caught Ellana in the wrong mood, after all.

“You have, all over town.”

“Why would you come here –“ the pale, irritated man’s face becomes panicked, but she can’t stop the words anymore. “- when you knew you wouldn’t like anything?”

A sound of disbelief rumbles in the woman’s puffed up chest, as she looks down her nose at her. The wave of her hand, and Ellana knows something is wrong, a strange but slight sensation on her skin. “That will teach you!”  

“You are… the Witch of the Wilds?” It is her time to have a disbelieving face, much in the same sort of anger as much as it is a refusal.

“Yes, dear, though I do prefer Flemeth.” With a sharp inhale, her chest inflates more. “You’ve landed into the wrong nest, little bird.” A bit of a warning, Ellana supposes, as she turns and walks out.

Though, what happened to her, she doesn’t know, because she doesn’t feel any different. Ellana begins to examine herself, hands rubbing down her face and finding wrinkles, hands holding up to her eyes and finding veins, and spots and dilapidated wrists and sagging skin. With a sigh she makes to the the mirror in the shop, and finds herself looking at a woman almost ninety years old, maybe, looking back at her with her own brown eyes.

Well, at least the body finally fits, she muses without much sadness at all.


	2. The Cleaning Terror

Beams of color refract across the floor where Ellana sits slumped over and crumbled into a chair. Blearily, she begins to wake, staring into the fire.

She can swear she saw a face in that fire last night, and it had spoken to her and she had spoken back. And so, she tried – “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” the fire grumbles back, crackling at the edges of his words. He slinks over the soot of his fireplace, peering over the edge of the ash pile. “Could you...” finger-like molten lava lift, splashing with a nondescript motion. “Give me a log?”

“Sure,” she answers, and lifts her creaking body from the chair. Oh, this was _horrible!_ Her joints pop and her bones crack and she swears it was so loud that it will wake Feynriel. A hand at her back as she bends to pick up a log and flops it onto the hearth. The demon reaches for it as she picks up a second, placing it there and pushing it into the fire.

“Thank you,” the fire politely says, wrapping over the logs.

Ellana turns to get a good look at the room, different here in the light than it was in the dark when she pushed in last night. That’s right, she slowly remembers.

After being turned into an old woman, she took her grey shawl and wrapped it over her shoulders once more, it finally suiting her, and grabbed a parcel of bread and cheese to take with her. Then she locked up the shop and left.

Just left.

It was something that she could blame on being old and senile, couldn’t she? Because she was too old to work in a pretty little hat shop anymore, wasn’t she? And she was not a cute or a pretty old woman, weathered but still spry, adorably sweet. Ellana was wrinkled and scaly and pocked, with little dark spots and a thousand freckles that appeared from age and not from being a sweet child that elicited counting.

The room is large, but most dilapidated. A throne sits at the top of a dais, steps leading up to it. On either side of the room are long tables, as if there are a hundred guests that are expected but have not arrived. Light that woke her shines down from wall-wide stained glass window on the next floor. Large holders for fire are speckled throughout. There are several rooms off of this one, she counts three doors on each side and wonders where they lead.

She supposes she’ll find out later.

The most alarming this is that one side of these tables is completely covered in bottles. Bottles, flasks, beakers, little piles of brown paper packets, white paper packets, each and every item labeled and set in a relatively orderly fashion. The scrawl was wispy and delicate, but one could take a glance and tell the person doing the job was hurried in places – some of the words crossed out, or letters running together, a few of the labels resulting in mere scribbles.

All of it, covered in a thick layer of dust.

Returning to the chair only as slow as a rickety old woman can with her aching body and her rattling mind, fingers press over her face.

“What’s wrong?” Feynriel’s voice hovers a bit over her as he picks up her walking stick and sets it nicely against the chair. She hadn’t heard any of the doors open, and so wonders where the boy has come from.

Haha, boy. Feynriel was taller than her in miles, and perhaps younger by a mere few years. Perhaps Velanna’s age. Velanna-Velanna, not Merrill-Velanna, who was a good fifteen years her younger. It is a wondrous thing that she can consider him a child now, considering her elderly body.

“I’m old,” she grouses, and the fire snorts and chuckles at her.

“Yes, you are,” Feynriel replies, and the smallest amount of sympathy can be found within the humor. “Such as things are.”

But she is unable to talk about the curse, her mouth bolting tight even as she starts to talk about it. Her lips bind and curl and pull clear back to her teeth. Instantly, she decides that’s not the best plan of action.

“Would you like some breakfast?” he asks, and she begins to get up again. “This is all we’ve got, I’m afraid. Some bread and cheese.”

“But there’s meat and eggs there!” she almost explodes with life at the thought of food, her anxiety and sorrow forgotten to make way for her intense hunger. The fact was, really, she had finished her parcel of cheese and bread pretty early in walking up the steep mountainous paths towards Sundermount, and had not eaten when she arrived. Too exhausted to even ask for food at the time.

“Only Fen’harel can cook on Fury.”

“I prefer Passion,” the demon complains. “I don’t want to be exploited.”

“You’re already hot. All you have to do is let me put this pan on your head.”

“It’s heavy! I get a headache.”

“A demon with a headache? I thought you were tougher than that.”

The eggs and bacon go into the basket with the cheese and bread, then her hand takes the iron skillet from Feynriel along with the metal spatula.

“No, I said no!”

“You’re a stingy little demon, aren’t you?”

“You, lady, are a decrepit old hag.”

“I am,” she nods, leaning to the fire, “and I will tell Fen’harel about our deal.”

It seems the domed head of the demon turns up to glare at her, all spikey teeth and precariously close. “I should burn you for that.”

“Go ahead.”

Passion makes a sound of anger, before she plops the pan onto his face and pushes him down, wiggling the pan as she went. “Abuse! This is abuse!”

“I’ll die without a meal, demon.”

“You have a meal!” It was muffled under the pan. She began to lay bacon into the pan, and it sizzled immediately, piping hot.

“You have to speak up, I’m rather old,” she replies, waving Feynriel to get the teapot. “Fill it with water, won’t you? We can make tea.”

“Fen’harel doesn’t like tea.”

“Well, I do,” a bit of a snap.

“We don’t have any tea,” he amends, finally, staying as far as he can away from her and her crazy ways.

Of course he doesn’t have any tea, because he wouldn’t have the most common household food in the entirety of Thedas. No, he wouldn’t, because he just doesn’t seem like the type to sit down to a cuppa. There are other things, though. “Then peel the piece of ginger and fill the teapot.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Make tea, of course.”

Feynriel scoffs. “You can’t make tea out of ginger!”

“Do you even know what tea is, boy?” Oh, she likes that. “You can, and you will!”

And so Feynriel peels the ginger and Ellana cooks the bacon. When he is finished, he says “Okay, now what?” with a pile of peels and a hunk of ginger.

“Put the peels in the pot.”

“Not the ginger?” he asks, even while he is putting the peels into the water and setting it next to her for her to place on the flame. No, he wouldn’t dare upset Passion more. It is just as well. Let the little demon be angry with her, he wouldn’t hurt her now.

That’s right, the details of the spell placed upon him is about the same as her own. He can’t talk about it, but it has to do with Fen’harel and she thinks it is a spell on them both instead of Fen’Harel having put the spell upon him. Regardless, the Wizard is a terrible man. Passion preforms all of the magic around the keep, and Fen’harel runs around trying to find stupid glowing balls. Glowing balls that reside in the hearts of young virgin women, who somehow have great power in their ‘innocent’ hearts. Or so the legend says.

 _Glowing balls_ , she chuckles to herself with a sort of malicious glee.

She flips the bacon and moves it aside to crack eggs into the pan. There is a creaking that she ignores, assuming it’s Feynriel moving around until she hears, “Who are you?”

Looking up she sees the young man from the square, the one who offered to escort her to the bakery. For a moment she found it strange, because he is only known to take the beautiful young women and and she was not beautiful, not whatsoever. Well, it doesn’t matter now, she thinks, because she’s old and decrepit and definitely not ‘innocent’.

“She’s a terror!” Passion screams from under the pan.

“He will only allow me to cook upon him. Move.” Despite his curtness, he nudges her rather gently, and takes the handle from the pan. “How did you persuade him to bow down?”

“Threats!” Passion whines again.

“That’s not true,” she lies, leaning back over him. “You were being uncooperative.”

“I don’t _like_ it when I am cooked on!”

“Then whatever are we supposed to cook on?”

“You have not answered my question,” Fen’harel presses again, pretty much ignoring the conversation. “I would like to know who is in my home.”

Ah, right. The demon had spent quite a bit of time the night before attempting to figure out a plan as to keep her in the castle, since there was no real reason for her to be there and if Fen’harel knew she was supposed to break his curse, then she would be thrown out instantly.

“I’m your new cleaning lady.” She says, without much thought about it at all except for the dust everywhere.

“You are?” His head lifts and he looks around. “Everything looks perfectly fine.”

“It doesn’t!” She has to thank Passion for the protest later. “Do you see how much ash is in here? It’s terrible!”

A perfect excuse, she thinks, because it would allow her to look through all of the rooms and go through his things and put them away. She has to find what the curse is, after all. An excuse to be an old snoop. She has to hide her grin.

But Fen’harel doesn’t bring up the subject again. “Feynriel, gather the dishware.” And the boy scrambles off to set the table. When he returns, he serves the bacon and eggs to each person at the table and throws the scraps into the fire for Passion to eat.

“Her name is Ellana,” Feynriel supplies, and she wonders at which point the night before that she had given it to him. He was reluctant at first, but the Eluvian had sealed behind her and there was no pushing her immediately back through. He was a nice boy, who wouldn’t do that to an old woman either, and so he helped her to a chair in order to wait for Fen’harel to return in the morning.

She talked to the demon instead, a change of plan, a deal made, and now she is trying to act as if she just belongs there and will stay whether he likes it or not. Fen’harel simply begins to eat his food as if nothing has happened and she isn’t even a new guest.

Ellana slowly goes and comes back with the tea, pouring it into three little cups.

“Tea? I detest the stuff.” Fen’harel scoffs, and stares at the cup with more hatred in his eyes than she thought capable towards a harmless liquid.

“It’s ginger steeped in water – no leaves,” a laugh as she set the pot down near the fire. Passion lets up with a groan and a sigh, stretching all around the fireplace as if he just got up from bed in the morning with a thousand aches and pains. “Thank you,” she says to the fire as if he had willingly bowed to be cooked upon, a bit of pleasant amusement in her voice.

“I hate you already.”

Fen’harel simply hums and sips lightly at the drink, but maybe in politeness because it doesn’t look as if he actually drinks it. Or perhaps it’s too hot still. She’s too old to care, really, breathing on her own cup.

“So, what is outside, exactly?”

It is Feynriel who answers, while Fen’harel simply sits there, silent. “What do you mean?”

“The walking Eluvian I found on Sundermount... We aren’t on Sundermount, that’s for sure. I would know if there was a castle like this there.”

“Oh, no, we aren’t on Sundermount. This Castle is in the Frostback Mountains.”

The Frostback Mountains were all the way in Fereldan, the edge of Orlais. _What?_ She had traveled across the world by walking through one door?

The said door’s glass surface glows and wavers, the usual blue color of it changing to red.

“Kirkwall door!” Feynriel announces, then bounds over his seat at the table and goes to one of the doors, which ends up being a large cupboard like space, and grabs a high neck robe and slips into the arms of it, dark grey and red with gold trim, and snaps the top closed.

Going to the door, he presses against the glass with his fingers to allow the glass to basically completely disappear and reveal a door inside of it. He opens the door. A little girl stands there with her basket, looking up expectantly. “Serah? I am here to pick up my mom’s order!”

His voice stumbles a bit as he tries to remember who in the world this person could be. “Uh...” She hands him a piece of paper, which he reads aloud. “Master Wolfe’s elfroot elixir? For smoking. Just a moment please. Just, wait there.” He closes the door.

As Feynriel goes through the plethora of bottles, packets, and beakers, Ellana watches the door. “So, you’re just going to make the little girl wait there without letting her in?”

“We don’t really have a store front to offer people free roam in.”

“This place is big enough for one! Just block off a section of this front room!”

“Well,” Feynriel glances at Fen’harel, who is flipping through a book that no one knew where it came from. “Anyway, I have to deliver this to her.” He was holding a dark vial, which he was labeling with a black pen that smelled to high heaven of alcohol, and went back to the door. “Here you are.”

“Thank you, Serah.” She hands him a tiny palm full of gold coins, then turns and leaves.

The door closes, the Eluvian glass seems to appear again, glassy and dark. And then, “Master Wolfe,” she laughs. “A fitting name for a wicked wizard like you, Fen’harel.”

Glancing up from his book, he flashes her a wicked grin, like the wicked wizard she has dubbed him, and she laughs even harder, her cup of ginger splashing as it bangs on the table.

“Fen’harel isn’t wicked,” Feynriel fusses, peeling off the oppressive robe.

“Oh, but I am,” Fen’harel corrects, with a glint of humor in his glassy eyes. Blue orbs that shine like a window, dark chestnut dreads down to his waist, and pale, but slightly golden skin with those brown freckles worthy of counting. _What?_ “I am incredibly dreadful.”

And then, Passion or Fury or whatever he wants to call himself moans from the hearth, “You wish.”

 


	3. The Clueless Snoop

Skyhold could have a thousand rooms, but doesn’t really. It doesn’t because it seems Fen’harel is too lazy to repair it, towers crumbled and beams falling, risking the integrity of the tower.

There is a large door at the end of one hallway, with a gaping hole fit for a dragon in the side of the hallway just... there, blowing in snow from the mountain the keep was nestled against. There is a rotunda, with a winding staircase at its edges that leads up to a rookery. Feynriel and Fen’harel seem to be there fairly often (when Fen’harel wasn’t out attempting to steal _glowing balls_ , that is), at his dusty desk with his millions of papers.

The last room on that side was his quarters, separated by a large section of stupidly ruined tower and another threshold she hadn’t crossed. Alternately, the other side of the keep was easily open to her but consisted of things like the kitchens, bathroom (covered in an equal amount of flasks and bottles), and a rather large storage cupboard. There was also a set of stairs on each side right inside the door leading up to the ledge with the large stained glass window.

After Fen’harel left for the day, Ellana got to cleaning. She didn’t plan on cleaning the entire keep, because that would be entirely absurd, but did plan on making sure their living spaces were clean. Each table, bench, and chair was dusted and wiped down, every tapestry taken outside on the edges of Sundermount and smacked to oblivion, getting every bit of dust out. She left them outside as she wiped off every container and moved each thing around in order to wipe off the table, finally getting on her hands and knees in order to wash the floor.

The first day, she is so tired that she almost abandons her agreement with Passion and leaves.

Fen’harel spends several hours in the bathroom each day, which is where she thinks his secrets lie. Or in his bedroom, of course. She can’t find much that cause alarm, however, though she is ridiculously curious about the “double-baked mabari crunch” treats and what they were doing in the baths of all places. There were others she had never heard before, besides the ingredients, that she makes mental notes of doing more research in the Atrium’s library about – “Arcane Elixir of the Mortal Vessel”, “Might Offense Potion” (that explains things, doesn’t it?), and “Tears of the Dead.” Embrium is just as alarming as it is common, a slang for a woman’s – anyway. It is time to move on, after all.

It takes hours for her to clean the bath after Fen’harel finishes each day, walking out practically covered in glitterdust.

“How does one man spend more time in the bathroom than every woman in Thedas combined?” she grouses as Passion runs the hot water to fill the dirty, slimy, multicolored bath.

“He’s quite heartless,” Passion tells her in response, with a rather confident nod of the head.

“Yes he is.” She notes, and goes into the bath to take inventory and clean rainbow sludge again.

Each room gets the treatment, sweeping and mopping and scrubbing, wiping and dusting and polishing. Books get put away and alphabetized, even if they are in languages she cannot read, jars of paints are put away and arranged by color, brushes are rinsed and a thousand colors run from them as if they have never before been cleaned. The stacks of paper on his desk are piled up in order to take cups, plates, and various utensils away to be cleaned. Sconces that are dirty with melted wax are cleared of drippings and upholstery is wiped down.

Then she sets about cleaning the hearth, pushing Passion to the back of the fireplace with the shovel she has found in the back of the cupboard, placing down a tarp to scoot the ash and soot into.

“Whoa, whoa, be careful!” Passion complains, and she only rolls her eyes. “You’re going to make me go out!”

“I won’t, stop,” Ellana snaps sternly, pulling and pulling on the shovel, wiggling it into the mountain of soot and pulling again. “This was your excuse to keep me around, after all.”

“That was a _lie,_ not something you were supposed to actually do!”

“And what if Fen’harel comes in here and sees I have not done my job!”

For that is the plan is it not? To prove that she is so good at her job that he finds he can’t live comfortably without her and her cleaning abilities. He needed them direly, after all.

“He’s not going to notice!”

The Eluvian glows and then makes a very slight sort of slurping sort of sucking sound as someone comes through.

“Fen’harel, help me! She’s trying to kill me!” Passion calls out to him, but he slinks past them and up to his chambers, not paying them any mind at all.

“It must be a girl,” Feynriel supplies, mixing ingredients at the table over, working on a potion. “This one is proving rather difficult.”

It doesn’t take long to get the ash out of the fire pit after all, and Feynriel conjures a levitating spell to take all of it outside, dumping it over the side of Sundermount’s cliffs. They return with driftwood for Passion, tucking it around him. He pulls himself over the broken and splintered logs, resting his domed head on top.

“Smells like the sea,” he says, which is probably the best thank you she’d get from him honestly.

“You’re welcome,” she replies, grinning, sinking into the chair near him.

That night, Feynriel jostles her awake and leads her upstairs to the chaise near the wide stained glass window, a hand at her elbow, to help lower her to it. She is too tired to protest, creaking joints and cracking bones making all the protest needed for her. He is gentle enough with her, when Fen’harel appears at their side himself, and conjures a blanket from thin air with whispers about stubborn old crones and his castle didn’t really need cleaning and blankets don’t prove that he isn’t as evil as he has set out to be.

Feynriel has a sort of quiet restraint about the entire thing where Passion had went about yelling at her until even the demon was hoarse. Instead he grabbed his most precious things out of her way from the alcove in the Atrium’s library, placing it downstairs in the clean main hall, before rejoining her and helping dust between each and every book he had collected for his studies. The rugs on the floor were dutifully beat until there was no more dust, and put back, his chair also wiped down with a slightly damp cloth and dried with a magical gust of wind.

“You stay nice and fluffed, because I don’t want to fluff you again,” she says to the pillows as she pats them with her palms. “It’s quite drafty in here. Feynriel doesn’t need a cold, he’s a good lad,” she tells the blanket as she folds it and drapes it over the back of the chair.

“Did you say something, Ellana?” he asks, ever polite.

“Oh no, just talking to the blanket, as old ladies tend to do.”

He smiles, just slightly, before turning and continuing to put away his books. Soon the space is clean and he is able to return the little box back underneath the loose floorboard under his chair, and is obviously grateful when she turns away as if she has no idea where he places it.

Ellana wipes down the windows of the rookery and laments the lack of birds, taking her breakfast up there in order to watch the sun rise and hear the bleating echo through the mountaintops. The trek down the stairs almost makes her stay in the library, researching, instead of tackling the task of the day: the bath when Fen’harel finally pries himself from that filthy tub, and his quarters.

“If these stairs were a little more cushy for my knees,” she says, holding tightly to the banister, “I would come up here each morning for breakfast.”

She long since needed her walking stick, she thinks, but does not complain even as she spies Fen’harel craning over his desk with some sort of writing. A pile of books he hasn’t bothered to disturb, even placing additional tomes right on top instead of skewed about.

“Ellana,” he says without looking up, and she wonders if it is the careening of her limbs that gives her away. She hums her acknowledgement nonetheless. “I request that you keep your cleaning from my rooms, if you can manage yourself.”

She gapes at him. “It’s my job – “

“It is,” he nods. “However, it is my private space. I would prefer to keep it such.”

A sound of complaint crosses her lips as she lets herself down from the last step.

“I haven’t set foot in your rooms.”

“I would like to keep it that way,” he stands, turning to face her and adjusting his wide green and gold trimmed sleeves. “I have heard just how much trouble you have been giving Feynriel and Passion.”

Attempting to stand taller, she squares her shoulders quite meagerly. “If the rest of this place has any indication of the state – “

“I would not have you rummaging about my bedroom. You have been looking for _who_ knows what, and I would like to make sure my private information is kept private.”

“You haven’t even allowed me to say my piece!”

“It is unnecessary.”

“You mean, listening to anyone’s mouth other than your own is unnecessary? How _kind_ of you, Serah.”

“I have done no such thing.”

“Pray tell, if I am not here to clean, what else am I here to do?”

“There must be something else for you to occupy your time with.”

“There _is not._ ”

“Please,” but it is more of a command than it is a request despite the kind word, “I would rather not argue with you. Find something else to do.”

“So that’s it. Any conversation that challenges you in the least, you simply run away from.”

“Precisely.”

And it is with this that he turns away from her, and she sags slowly from the rotunda to sit in front of the fire and sulk.

“What’s it, Ellana?” the demon asks her, peering up at her from under a log.

“My cleaning has come to an end,” she says, dejected. “And I still have not found any clues.”

“I’ve given you clues,” he says, annoyed.

“What were they, then?”

“Well, there’s a binding agreement on us both.”

If he were to tell her what the clue was, then it wouldn’t be a clue anymore, she thinks. It doesn’t leave her feeling any better. “I don’t have the energy to go back up to to the library.”

“Tell Feynriel to bring you the books you need, or just ask. He’s pretty smart now.”

“I only know a handful of elvish. If I ask, it’ll confirm that I’m a snoop.”

“Everyone knows that already,” in a bit of a reassuring voice, though not without a degree of wry amusement.

“I’ll get thrown out.”

“No,” Feynriel sits next to her. “It’s really Passion who determines who gets kicked out.”

“Really?”

His fair head nods while Passion’s molten fingers reach for a log. Feynriel fetches one for him, placing it into the hearth for him to curl around.

“I can’t simply sit around here.”

“That’s what Passion does.”

“Hey!” Passion’s lava sizzles on the wooden floor and causes a tiny spark as he sputters, one that Feynriel tamps down with his foot. Ellana laughs a bit, the flicker of a youthful smile coming through.

“Maybe...” he looks around. “Well, what else are you good at besides cleaning?”

“I used to make clothes for my sisters,” she says, old voice cracking at the thought. She wonders how her sisters are doing. It had been months since they had all been separated, even though it had only been a week since she arrived.

“Perhaps you could,” he glances at his torn sleeve.

“Oh! Give it here –” reaching out, she practically snatches it from him, yanking the tunic almost until it is off of his shoulder.

“I have many others, just, give me a moment.” Sparing her a soft laugh, he goes again.

Feynriel brings her a small mountain of clothing for her to mend, which she gets to working on right away. By time dinner rolls around, she is feeling much better and is quite more in her element. Cleaning, she is good at, but sewing she is great at.

Fen’harel brings her a plum suit much like the green and gold one that he so often wears, laying it over the table near her. “If this will keep you occupied, do mend this suit also,” he says.

“Heartless,” gripes Passion once more, with the shakes of his head.

The next several days are full of Feynriel meeting her at the stained glass for breakfast and Fen’harel joining them for stew in front of the fire at dinner. Passion chatters happily about things like the fade and the sky, falling and swimming and being something other than a demon, asking copious questions as to the birth of those who are born of people in this world. The answers make him blush, unexpectedly as a demon blushing can be, though childbirth tears a retching noise from his throat.

As Passion speaks, she talks to the string as she sews, admiring the fabric of the suit. “A suit like you should attract the wife Fen’harel has been looking for. Or those glowing balls. Whichever he needs more, really.”

In the afternoons, she speaks to Passion as she sews the holes in garments and tapestries alike, only cleaning once in a while, having given up on the packets, bottles, and the like in the bathroom and strewn about the tables. More than once she has to reprimand the two young men about their bad habits after Fen’harel accidently pours one into his drink and consumes half of it before realizing it was poisonous to ingest, hurling for an hour into the bath. At that point she lets them their follies. It’s a wonder she doesn’t have brothers, since she is so unprepared for their lack of forethought, though she is reminded of her father in some ways, some days.

She forgets that she and Fen’harel do not get along at all, or that he does not like her and that she is basically useless as she fixes hearty dinners and he smiles when he takes a bite from bread made from cornmeal or sips from rich broths. There are days that he blushes bright to the tips of his long ears, but she never asks why. It won’t be long that the curse is broken, she knows, and they will part ways. She will return to her little hat shop and carry her life there in lower Kirkwall, never to see Fen’harel again.

So it means nothing when she is slightly lonely the day Fen’harel leaves once again looking for those glowing orbs (or so she supposes, he’s never actually told her), and it certainly means nothing when he returns and heads straight to the bathroom.

Except when he comes careening out of it at lightning speed, with a towel over his head and blue saucer eyes turned blazingly towards hers her own dull brown ones.

“You’ll catch flies,” she points out with a bit of a smirk, when his mouth sits open in... well, something.

“Y-y-you!”

“Me!”

He presses the towel over his mouth, turns back into the bathroom, and slams the door so hard she’s sure the brick walls shudder and the door splits. Ellana leans to look, and when she sees that the door is fine, she returns back to her sewing.

“He’s pretty angry with you,” Passion says to her.

“Certainly looks like it,” she agrees, thinking she’s just too old to care at this point.

The door opens again, the previous towel about his shoulders and a second around his waist. Something resolute passes over his features, and he stands straighter, but with a condescension that she has yet to receive from him. “You said you had not touched the magical powders in the bathroom,” his voice says levelly.

“I cleaned the grime off the bottles,” she doesn’t even look up. “But I put each back where they went. It’s been at least four days besides, I’m not sure why you’re suddenly upset.”

“You have not looked at me, have you?”

She does, at these words, and then laughs. He frowns. “What did you do to yourself?”

A finger jabs at his bald head. “What did _you_ do to me, Ellana?”

“I did nothing,” she shrugs. “Perhaps you should be more careful in your labelling?”

Blue eyes narrow at her and she meets them without remorse or care. They stare at each other for long enough that Feynriel is grasping at Fen’harel’s shoulder and Passion is attempting to distract Ellana with a half-assed joke. Chestnut eyebrows raise into what should have been a hairline, but it is an expanse of skin, and he sighs, allowing Feynriel to drop him into a chair.

Once in it, he runs his hands over his face, and then back over the bare stretch of his scalp. There is a pulse over the ground, something very magical and very physical, alarming enough for her to lift her feet from the floor. Grass sprouts and grows even from the stone and mortar and wood beneath them. First the grass, and then the grass melts into some sort of strange goop. The goo is all over him also, as if it is oozing from his pores.

She realizes he is attempting to force hair to grow from his body, and so the entirety of his sheer and almost nonexistent body hair grows into something spindly and incredibly thin. Unfortunately, nothing comes from the top of his head except this goo, and like the grass on the floor the tiny thin threadbare hair turns into more slop and coats him from head to toe with a painful groan.

He doesn’t make much sound, no not really, but his moaning and groaning is hauntingly painful, straight through to her bones. Feynriel is sitting on top of the table they typically dine upon, staring down at the sludge with wide eyes. It is as if Fen’harel is frozen in place, and she wonders how long he can keep up with producing the disgusting stuff before he swallows and suffocates himself with it.

“Ellana, help! Please!” Passion squeaks helpless from the hearth, the muck thickly rolling over the slightly raised surface and to the edge of the soot.

With the croak of her own voice and a cry from her limbs, she trudges through the stuff in order to make it over to Passion. “You better be glad we sort of have a deal,” she says to him, knowing that Fen’harel is beyond paying attention. With a fire poker she pushes the soot and ash up to the stuff, it doesn’t work so well but it’s the best she’s got right now, blocking it for now, and then drags over a couple of logs. One of them is to give to Passion to burn, the other is to protect him from the goo like a blockade.

“I’m glad, I’m glad,” he promises, burning orange eyes flickering over towards Fen’harel. “That guy, though. What did you do?”

“I did nothing!” she lies again. “All I did was wipe all his gross off of everything. Just because he just reaches blindly is not my fault. Maybe he’ll learn something.”

“Maybe,” the demon concurs, poking his head over the barrier log.

Then Ellana turns her attention to Fen’harel, and kicks an old feeble foot against his leg. “Stop it, you’re acting like a child.”

He doesn’t answer.

“We’re going to wash him,” she tells Feynriel, who knows better than to object at the moment, and creates the same levitation spell from before to carry Fen’harel and his goo into the bathroom.

“Lots of hot water, Passion!” she calls, who she can hear complaining but a rush of steaming liquid fills the tub quicker than usual. “You’re just a brat, aren’t you, Fen’harel.”

The Wizard says nothing but sinks further into the water. They push his arms and legs into the tub and the water turns a murky green. She dips a towel in and first wipes his face.

“You’re going to make yourself unable to breathe with this slime. Some wicked wizard you are.”

Fen’harel makes a small noise of agreement, and closes his eyes as his face and the skin of his scalp is cleansed. It doesn’t take long for the duel efforts of Feynriel and Ellana to get the goop off of him, Feynriel drying him immediately with a spell. By the time they are done Fen’harel is at least willing to walk to his seat in front of the fire.

She sweeps the slime out of the door and out onto the banks of Sundermount’s tumultuous sea, hoping that it would get washed away in the next storm, and knows she will need to scrub and polish the floors later. But first –

Ellana has two younger sisters, and she certainly knows that temper tantrums are never about what they appear.

And so she heats a cup of milk over Passion’s fire and lays a blanket over Fen’harel shoulders. Once he is holding the cup in his hand and is breathing in its swirling warmth, arms cross over her chest and she leans against the wall next to the fireplace. “Now tell me what is really the problem.”

“It’s been weeks,” his deep voice almost holds a whine underneath. “I have been courting her for weeks and she has still resisted me.”

“I thought you had taken her heart and moved on already.”

“No, I was leaving her alone so that her desires may grow a bit, without seeing me. However... now she has another!”

“Then you should pursue someone else?” Ellana suggests, leaning in. But she knows he will not. He is a persistent man if there is one, if anything.

“I cannot do such a thing!” The cup of milk in his hands rises to his lips and he drinks. “I thought I should try a new look. A different hair color or something. Not this – no woman will ever be attracted to me again.” The words were matter-of-factly said, however much it is a complaint.

“You never know. You look very... astute now.”

“Velanna values intelligence and skill. You’re right, Ellana!” He bounds from his seat and takes Ellana’s hands in a moment of rare emotion. A smile stretches from one ear to the other. “Finish mending the suit for me, Ellana!”

With that he departs for his rooms, leaving her with the half mended suit, a pile of Feynriel’s slimed clothes, and scrubbing for days. And, well, both of them sigh heavily.

_Oh Velanna!_

 


	4. The Conflicted Escapee

Ellana intends to leave.

She really does, but she hurts so much, aches and pains making her groan and croak in the morning. Fen’harel is in the baths again, and she does not have the energy to clean it. Feynriel brings her breakfast as he usually does and sits with her on the other chaise near the large stained glass window.

This morning, however, he is busy and is the first to leave. Ellana eventually drags herself downstairs to sit before the fire, letting the soothing warm help the hurt in her knees.

“On dhea,” Fen’harel practically announces as he comes out of the bathroom, the scent of moss and spice following after him. Wood perhaps, something as manly as it is soft and earthy. A scent designed to attract women, of course. “I think I like my hair bald,” he says cheerfully at her.

She doesn’t answer.

“Are you in pain today? Or are you simply annoyed with me?” He moves to bend over her chair and look at her in the face, grabbing her walking stick and neatly tucking it up to the chair so she can easily reach it.

“I don’t know,” she grouses. “Maybe someone slimed the place, threw a tantrum, almost smothered Passion, and stole a hundred glowing hearts. I am not sure why I would be annoyed in the least.”

Fen’harel only laughs, and presses a hand to her shoulder. A wash of something falls over her, tingling at the edges of her and sliding through the creases of skin. Just barely. She wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been hurting so much and wasn’t just paying rapt attention to those pains. They subsided some, but she wouldn’t thank him for it.

“I’ll take better care when I return, but I hope that is sufficient for now.”

“Where are you going?”

“I must see the Vicount,” he sighs despondently. “It is time. There is a spell on the table for Feynriel to study. Don’t wreck anything or torture anyone while I’m gone! I should be home for dinner.”

“Does that mean you expect me to cook dinner?” she snaps, almost growling.

“Of course. You have nothing else to do, after all.”

Ellana looks up to glower at him and he simply flashes one of those convincing smiles, all straight teeth and dimpling at the corner of his mouth and lips that look –

Ugh. “You bastard.”

“Almost.”

His fingers skim across her shoulders as he moves away, grabbing a cloak to pull about him and moving to the Eluvian. With the skim of a touch along the frame the Eluvian blooms to life with blue light. It cycles to green, then black, then red where it stops and he steps through onto the streets of Kirkwall’s merchant’s square.

With this she is left alone to her pessimistic nature sitting in front of the fire with Feynriel’s freshly washed clothes that she needs to mend. She was going to leave! Now she has things to do!

She could leave, now. Neither of them are here!

“I’m leaving,” she tells Passion, craning herself out of the chair with the walking stick. But she couldn’t tell him that she didn’t intend on coming back. Fen’harel is a pain in her ass. She’d find some other way to break her curse.

“Could you put a few logs nearby if you’ll be long, then?” Passion calls to her as she begins to get ready to go. She pulls her shawl around her shoulders and ties it under her chin.

“You can reach them?”

“I can reach all the way to the edge of the fireplace!” He is so proud, and it compels her. Drawing closer, he shows her, extending a little dripping lava hand out to the edge of the fireplace.

Ellana claps three times, happily. “That’s a real accomplishment!” Then she begins to stack logs next to him.

“Where are you going?” There seems to be a bit of worry in his voice, or maybe it’s her imagination because there’s no real reason for anyone for worry about her and then she thinks it’s because of the contract and he has a feeling she’s leaving for good because demons and spirits can pick up on things people can’t.

“My sister is Velanna,” she tells him.

“Oh,” and he sounds just as dejected as she does. “There’s no hope for her, then.”

“No?” She sighs and shakes her head. “I can’t sit here knowing what Fen’harel is going to do to her and not do something to help her. I am not good at much but I can be a good sister.”

It occurs to her that she might be venting, so she closes her mouth here and refuses to talk on it more. Just as well, it seems, as she tightens her shawl once more.

“Please come back,” Passion whispers as her hand flattens against the Eluvian and she waits until it turns red. Instead it stops on the blue one, and doesn’t allow for her to change it.

“It’s the Eluvian’s door,” he says. And so it opens slightly, and through it flashes red. Something tries to push through the door, yellow skin and rusted armor and the entire body covered in dried blood. A face, ghoulish and raw, presses to the crack in the door.

There’s a lurch in her heart at the sight of it, and it takes her breath away, but she’s the only one here and Passion cannot leave the hearth and so she shrieks and rushes the Eluvian. Pressing a hand through the door, she pushes the thing, the grime on it spreading to her, almost all the way up her arm.

She’d need a bath.

“Passion! Passion please,” she begs and Passion pokes his head out to see. “It’s going to get in! Why are you here? This isn’t fair!”

It scrapes against the frame of the Eluvian outside, hanging onto its edges. “What should I do? It’s dragging me down.”

“Run! Go as fast as you can. Maybe you can shake it off!” She pushes and pushes and makes a tiny boney fist to punch at its hands but it doesn’t let go. “I can’t get the Eluvian to close!”

“It’s because it’s somewhat inside.” He grumbles a bit, but then starts to speed up. She can feel the bounce of the door somehow, the swiftness of it as the two little feet shake. The wall rattles where the Eluvian is set up against, the entire wall even though it’s brick and mortar and probably magically held together. The glass bottles and beakers clank and clink on the table behind her.

“Go away go away go away,” she whispers quick as lightning through her teeth. “You don’t belong here. You don’t know me. Go away, go back to where you came from. Go somewhere else.”

It lets go at last at those words, and the Eluvian shimmers back into place when she steps back. Collapsing against it, Ellana’s chest heaves and she shakes her head to try to clear it from some of the fog from adrenalin. That wasn’t the same thing that she pulled out of the brush on her way up to the Eluvian was it? It wasn’t like that then. It was just a man, but he was all black with slivers of blue around his eyes and a very pale face.

“Go find someone to help you, you don’t look well,” she had told him, dragging him to his feet. “Find someone to help you, really. You need a doctor. Or a wizard or something. But don’t go up that way, that’s the Wastes, you don’t want to run into wicked old Fen’harel.”

_Oh I did._

But what is this creature that resulted from it, and why is it here now? She couldn’t help it. And, ugh, just. Why couldn’t it just leave her be? Honestly, why did she ever think she could do anything with herself by leaving the hat shop? So what if her lifespan has been cut by sixty years? It’s not like she can do anything other than mess up anyway. That’s just what being the oldest is like. How could she even think differently?

Ellana groans, suddenly achier than before, and turns around to open the Eluvian again. Leaning her head out, about a hundred paces back is the thing (the thing? What is this thing anyway?). She closes it, and turns to Passion.

“Go faster! We haven’t lost it yet!”

“It’s rather strong, it’s dragging me down.”

“Then we have to lose it, for your sake too.” And now she’s even more worried than before. This makes her worry even more, and it starts to compound on itself until she’s hyperventilating. Does that mean she considers the demon a _friend?_ And what will that do? Because Passion isn’t even as much as Fen’harel isn’t evil, right?

That’s yet to be seen, though, and she can give it time.

Her heart pounds hard in her chest, like it’s trying to leap out. When she was young this would have gone away in no time, but now she is afraid because it hurts more than she can understand in this fragile old body, and Ellana crumbles against the frame of the Eluvian trying to keep herself upright with nails scraping along its frame.

She presses her hand against the glass once more, and looks out. She no longer can see the _thing_ (What is it?!), and she blows out relief from her lungs long and deep. Closing the Eluvian once more, she slumps over to the hearth.

“You can stop now, I can’t see it anymore.”

“Good, I’m so tired.” Passion pauses to look at her. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she lies. “I’m fine,” with a hand pressed hard to her chest to calm it.

 

 

 

“Ellana!”

Feynriel carefully places several boxes onto the table behind her as she sews, whispering to the threads of his socks and willing them not to fray again. They are cream colored like hand made paper and wrapped in bows of bright purple. He is careful to place them down just as they lay in his hands.

“Ellana!” he repeats, gesturing wildly. “Open them! They’re for you, after all.”

“Why would you do something like that?” Her needle stalls and she looks up.

The fire harrumphs, small and buried under its log in small embers.

“We should celebrate, that’s why.” He pushes one box towards her.

“These are from the bakery in Kirkwall?” Carefully, she puts aside Fen’harel’s plum and silver trimmed suit to pluck at the ribbons holding the box closed.

“Yeah, I, uh, went to go see Velanna!”

 _You mean, Merrill-Velanna._ “Oh? I did not know you knew her.”

“ _You_ know her?”

“Well, I am from that region. There aren’t that many elves living in Kirkwall these days.”

“Right, of course you’d know her.” He laughs, almost gleeful. “Everyone knows her, really. When Fen’harel said he’d been courting her and that she had found another I was _so worried._ ”

Her brows rise to her hairline. Oh was he? She busies herself with carefully dismantling the cake box instead, finding it with an egg custard tarte, bright berries on top glazed with the sheen of melted sugar. Feynriel goes to fetch a knife, forks, and plates.

Eventually, she has to bite or her curiosity will never be sated. “So, how do you know Velanna?”

Instantly, his cheeks turn pink back to the tips of his ears. “Well, I’m going to marry her.”

It takes quite a bit of self-control to stop herself from screaming at him. Instead she says, “You have a while yet for that, child.”

“Yeah,” he nods sheepishly, handing her a piece of the tarte. She settles onto the bench at the table next to him, balancing the plate on her knees so she wouldn’t have to struggle getting her legs under the table. “I’ve got three years yet before I finish my apprenticeship, and Velanna has more time than that even, but we’re going to wait for each other.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Oh yes. Both of us only got each other, now, but we’ll get through it. She says she misses her sisters though. She never gets to see them anymore, they got sent away when her Father died. Her mother barely waited a few months to get remarried, you see, and the three of them were tossed away as if they were never wanted in the first place.”

There’s a moment where Ellana has to resist more urges. Mother was married already? She had barely left the shop for a full two weeks. Feynriel is a good boy, though, and Merrill would be happy with him. She must be enough of herself in order for him to know that she is barely thirteen. It won’t be long, Ellana promises herself. She had gotten content here in Fen’harel’s castle, but she really did need to get on breaking the curse so that she could return home.

Thankfully, Feynriel kept talking. He’s in a good mood after all, and perhaps happy to be sharing all this with someone. “Fen’harel must not be talking about her, then. She hadn’t met him at all! I asked her a bunch of questions, described him and she couldn’t recall seeing him. I don’t think she’d be dishonest about something like that.”

“No, she doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body,” she reassures both of them. That is only mostly true, though, since she had deceived Wynne. It was for the best, she is sure. He also doesn’t know Merrill’s name is Merrill and not Velanna, so that is another level of duplicity, but surely this is something that can be rectified in the long run also. Right?

Right.

“Yes, I don’t think someone so beautiful could ever be a liar.”

No, Merrill isn’t a liar, she can concede to that, and it settles her mood a bit. She does what needs to be done, just as she told her the truth immediately upon seeing her. Everything will be fine. She’s a good girl and he’s a good lad and it’s rather good for them to end up together, all things considered.

The repetition helps her. They’re both good young ones. They’re both _good_.

More urges, this time to push Feynriel right out of Fen’harel’s door and attempt to find him a better teacher.

Looking down she realizes she has finished her piece of tarte already, and turns to try to get more. Feynriel takes the plate from her and serves her once more while she frowns at him.

“I don’t need help,” she says.

“I’m not helping, I’m being polite. And you’ll allow me to because I am supposed to do that for you, Mamaela. Velanna would be so disappointed in me.”

She groans at the half endearment half insult, but she can’t fault him for it because it simply is what she is. So she takes the tarte and begins eating again. Who is Fen’harel after, then? Could it be the real Velanna? She wouldn’t fall for his wiles would she?

_Would she?_

Well, she isn’t going outside now. Not with that _thing_ hanging around the Eluvian and Passion being so worn out that they weren’t moving anymore.

Softly, there is the pop and shimmer of said Eluvian’s surface allowing someone through. Fen’harel’s baritone resonates through a sigh as he turns and hangs his cloak in the the tall cupboard. Then he moves to join them near the fire, crossing his legs and gazing at Passion with a tense jaw.

“Good Evening, Fen’harel,” she says to him with pointed annoyance, and he glances at her sidelong.

“Evening.” Taking notice of the boxes, “The others are not open.”

“This one is for you,” says Feynriel, pushing a blue and purple-ribboned box towards the wizard.

When he opens it, he finds little cakes made out of different things, each one with a decoration on top. Some of them have edible flowers, others dried fruits, and one pair has nothing at all, powdered and white to prevent stickiness. He lifts one of these to his lips first.

Ellana turns her head so she does not watch him eat. Because that’s weird. That’s totally and completely weird.

“So what happened with the Vicount?” Feynriel ventures to ask, and she is glad for it because if she did the asking surely he wouldn’t answer. Not only that but he would accuse her of being nosy.

“I must find a way to get out of this,” he replies instead, giving no indication that something is wrong other than him having to do something.

“Out of what?” he has the courtesy to sound concerned. It makes Fen’harel all the more dejected.

“I must find a way to get out of this contract or he will end up making me the Royal Wizard.”

“I take it that this is bad.” Ellana leans her chin in her hand as she curls over on the bench with her empty plate.

“So the gaatlock shield spell didn’t work?”

“Quite the opposite,” he complains. “It worked so well that now the Vicount wants me to be the Royal Wizard in place of Anders. The last job he was assigned to was to look for his son, Prince Seamus.”

“So you plan on getting out of looking for the Vicount’s son because... you simply don’t want to?” Ellana finds herself annoyed. “Perhaps too busy with chasing down girls and leaving them heartbroken.”

His brow furrows at her and says nothing in response, instead getting up and bending to peer into the hearth. “Passion? Wake up.”

Passion grumbles a little, and there isn’t much more than a glow from underneath the logs.

“Passion,” his voice is sterner this time. “I require your assistance.”

With a groan, Fen’harel grabs the fire poker and shoves it under the log. Passion blazes up with a yelp and Ellana is ready to throttle Fen’harel for treating Passion so harshly. “Hey!” Both of them yell at once. Fen’harel throws her an annoyed glare.

“Let me sleep,” Passion snaps at him. And then he promptly sinks down to an ember again to go to sleep.

Before anything can be said, Fen’harel rounds on Ellana, bending to glare. “What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything to him!”

“He’s at the edge of his life! You must have done something to him!”

She cringes. It’s the first time he’s truly yelled at her. “I didn’t do anything _to_ him, Fen’harel. Is this how you treat all old women?”

His brow creases so hard that there is another wrinkle in his forehead, scowling down at her. Straightening, he looks down his nose at her, a look that she only remembers from one other person. The Witch of the Wastes herself. It makes her flinch away quite visibly, and she wasn’t paying attention to the way he softens slightly when he sees it.

“Tell me what happened, then.”

“There was a thing in the Wastes, it was trying to get in. It pushed itself up to the Eluvian and he had no idea what it was so we opened the Eluvian and it was this... this _thing_.”

“What kind of thing?”

“I don’t know what it’s called, if it has a name. It was like a person, but not. Like one of the walking corpses but not like them at all. It still had flesh and muscles and it was even wearing armor. But it’s head was just... squishy and lopsided and there was barely any skin. And there was dried blood all over it.”

“A darkspawn,” he concludes. “Did you touch it?”

A sense of dread comes over her. “I...” Her eyes looked down to her hands. “Yes.”

He holds his hands out for her to place her own into, and carefully looks at them. They are small compared to his, even more so because they are old and fragile. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“We were here alone and Passion had no idea what was outside, just that it was trying to get in. I had no choice.”

“I don’t think you’ve contracted the blight, but just to make sure...” he motions to Feynriel. “There’s a salve I want you to keep on your hands and arms for a few days.”

“I thought the blight isn’t curable!” she shudders at the thought.

He hums but shakes his head. “That’s not true at all. There are multiple ways to stop the blight.” But he does not go into details, because he is still angry and she can feel it rolling over her in waves. It seems that the story of the darkspawn has roused worry in him, at least. “Where could a darkspawn come from in these parts?”

She wasn’t going to tell him that she had met the man before he became the darkspawn, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him that she helped it. What a terrible mistake to make, she berates herself, how stupid. Everyone knows the signs of the blight. And really, if it had gone down into the town until of up towards the traveling Eluvian, it is very possible that would be an entire Kirkwall of darkspawn by now.

“Passion?”

“He ran away from it, as fast as he could, so that we could get away. It tired him out so he went to take a nap.”

When he finishes spreading the salve on her hands and arms with a strange mixture of irritation and care, he doesn’t say much else about the matter. In fact, he turns away to finish his cakes and goes up to his quarters. They don’t hear from him for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

The next morning, Feynriel brings the salve along with breakfast, which is the other sweet potato pastries that they hadn’t ate the night before. He spreads it across the back of her hands and knuckles and wrists, up the arm of the right hand because that was the one that got the most darkspawn goo on it.

Fen’harel is already in the bathroom, and probably has been for quite a while by time they make it down the stairs. She takes a seat in the chair that had been pulled in front of the fire a long time ago, it one day became upholstered on the seat and then the back and then the next time there was a basket to hold her sewing materials.

Feynriel’s clothes are not nearly mended, she knows, and she starts on his shirt next. Passion flickers and waves from side to side softly humming a little song in a language she barely knows, a language that she understands a word here or there but largely she doesn’t understand.

She doesn’t ask, though, she doesn’t want to know. If she knows then that means she cares and she can’t care. Right?

Right.

So the morning carries on until Fen’harel gets out of the bath, honey, mahogany, and whiskey wafting out from behind him into the room like little clouds of hands reaching for his attention. He settles next to her, leaning from the bench of the table to peer at her.

“Let me see your hands.”

Ellana doesn’t fight this request, because if you catch the blight by touching darkspawn, and she already has one curse to get rid of, this isn’t something she wants to have to deal with on her own. She has to place her mending aside, and places her hands in his waiting ones. He pours some sort of magic over her, and she doesn’t know what it is, but he does. His thumbs brush over the tops of her hands, over her boney knuckles, and he hums. Ellana wonders what it all means, of course, but it’s hard to say and harder to ask.

“You better not be casting an evil spell on me,” she warned him with a testiness in her voice.

“What else would I be doing?” he can barely hide the amusement in his voice when he responds, trying to keep it low and level and uncaring. Aloof.

That damned Wizard, not being wicked!

“There is something I’d like you to do for me,” he begins again, releasing her hands and leaning back against the table to grab one of the pastries left over from the day before. His anger seems to have left him, thankfully, perhaps because Passion was still singing little songs happily in the hearth, and it is hard for him to be upset about that. Or, it should be.

Is she really thinking a demon is cute? _Passion is not cute!_ He’s... charming. NO. He’s a demon! Damn it all to the void.

“What?” she grouses, trying to lift herself from her thoughts.

Fen’harel smirks. “I have decided the way for me to get out of my predicament. You will go to the Vicount under the pretense that you are my mother, and do what you do best.”

She has grabbed her sewing again by now, and glances sidelong at him from it, knowing there is a veiled insult in here somewhere. “Now, what could that be?”

“Simply, you will complain. Make him feel I am incapable of finding Prince Seamus. I am a terrible son, after all. You know how horrid I am. Tell him, you will regret placing such a large task in Fen’harel’s hands.”

“How do you know I will be able to do something like that?” She sighs, really because she doesn’t have the energy to be angry and chooses exasperation instead. He’s not going to listen. “I’m not going to do it.”

“You will,” his voice slips into the one that is unmovable.

But she hardens even more. “I won’t.”

Just as well that the Eluvian blazes to life, glowing blue. “It’s the Eluvian’s door,” Passion tells them.

Fen’harel goes to open it, and finds the large, spikey bloody red thing at it, holding onto the frame and leaning in close to him. It doesn’t come inside, and it growls at him. He steps back and looks around startled, frightened for a moment, before becoming steeled again. His brow furrows.

Ellana has fallen out of her chair and crawled under the table. “That’s the _thing_!” Breath escaping her.

“No, you’re not coming in here, friend. You don’t belong here.”

The darkspawn growls and presses and leans more, hanging and leaning and thrusting itself at him. Ellana wonders for a moment why it does not come inside since it obviously can at this point.

“I said, no,” Fen’harel repeats, leaning towards it and looming just slightly. His hands clasp together behind his back. “Since you will not respect what I have ordered, I will need to send you away myself. I am sorry, but you are scaring Ellana.”

His eyes glow, and the darkspawn is covered in light tinged green. It seems to sink into its bones and rotting skin, which becomes slightly more yellow than the sickly red-brown-green that is was before, but just slightly, just... It is flung back, somehow. Its screech can be heard fading away, as it is thrown somewhere that it cannot easily return, a tiny speck in the sky until it isn’t seen anymore. Fen’harel waits until it can no longer be seen, and then closes the Eluvian.

And then even he lets out a long, shaking breath.

“Come now, Ellana,” he bends to help Ellana from under the table, then gets her settled again in her chair. She can’t catch her breath, her heart thumping hard in her chest and her brain fluttering off somewhere that she can’t understand. A hand presses to her heart, which quivers and thumps, and she closes her eyes.

“I’m fine,” she says, which really means she is not in the least.

What she doesn’t see is Passion leaning out of the hearth to look at her with a face full of worry (or at least as worried as a demon can seem), and the look that passes between Passion and Fen’harel. He turns his attention back to Ellana, the tips of fingers stroking over the hand that she has pressed to her heart.

“Yes, you are,” he says.

She is, then. It seems the little touch, or maybe it is magic but she can’t tell the difference anymore... it grounds her and her mind clearly in her body. Definitely. Breathing deeply, she grips her fingers around his wrist for a moment for stability, and he lets her and it’s a dear help that he says nothing about it. It lets her not think about it either.

“You’re fine,” he repeats, and she nods and breathes deep one more time, and lets him go. He steps back as she doesn’t need him anymore, and settles onto the bench of the table again. “I must apologize.”

“For what?” It is hard to look at him now. She feels older than ever before, and has lost her composure entirely.

“That was certainly frightening. I should have not been cross with you. Not after needing to deal with that alone.”

Ellana laughs now, a bit nervously, because it is too much to feel all at once. “It’s whatever.”

“It is not,” he concludes, but drops it anyway. “I must be off, but I won’t be too long.” It sounds like a reassurance. “Passion and Feynriel will be here, also, so don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” she agrees, trying to dismiss his concern. He stares at her anyway for a long while and she is not quite sure why, before gathering his things to leave.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments and kudos! I am so happy that you are enjoying the fic! <3
> 
> \---
> 
> Translations:  
> On dhea - good morning  
> mamaela - grandmother


	5. The Circle of Frustration

The Gallows is not the most... welcoming of places.

Feynriel hovers behind her slightly, not wanting to enter in the least. Not that she can blame him, he has aptitude towards magic and is young, spy. She is just an old woman with not an ounce of it except perhaps in her blood. They weren’t likely to bother her, but him? They were going to bother him. It makes her worry enough that she grips his jacket in her boney fingers under the guise that he is helping her walk.

She is practically ninety, after all.

The place itself is blandly beige with red torn flags and blackened metal everywhere. Not in the least inspiring and the most oppressive to creativity and imagination. It was once a prison, but a very long time ago. Long enough that being able to forget is supposed to help but doesn’t really. Absently, she wonders where the prisoners are now. The Templars are covered in heavy, thick armor, their helmets with the slits for eyes - she wonders if they can even see her without bending, firstly, and secondly, how can they tell if someone is magical or not encased in that tin can?

“Here to bring your child to study at the Circle where he belongs?” asked one Knight-Templar. He stands at the entrance to the imposing structure, a thousand steps to climb. His hand reaches to clasp around her other arm, lifting her weight slightly and allowing her to step somewhat more lightly.

“He is being trained by an expert already,” she replies testily.

He laughs. “And which Wizard would that be? There are not many capable enough that the Circle would excuse this presence.”

“Fen’harel himself!”

Again, he laughs, boisterous and long, with a hand around his gut. It fades, but the grin across his lips does not. He looks at Feynriel for a moment, but says nothing to him or about attempting keeping him, not anymore, not with this little old lady with him. “Then why are you here, Grandmother?”

_What was it with people calling her grandma?_

“I have a...” she clears her throat before she said sister. They would never believe her, she was too old. Perhaps something else would help. “...niece here, that I would like to visit.”

“Oh, do you? Certainly not under the tutelage of someone as great as The Fen’Harel.”

“Wynne probably won’t like that comment.”

The guard stiffens at that. “You’re here to see Wynne, too? Why didn’t you just say so?” The Templar frowns slightly and his hand tightens around her arm just enough for her to notice.

“You can let me go, Messere.”

He does unclasp her then, as Feynriel wraps his arm around hers a bit more protectively. Because if she was harmed, he’d tell her later, Fen’harel would have his hide. And well, they were here to usurp his attempts to woo Velanna, and he wouldn’t like that either. “Come this way then, Grandmother.”

Dark hair and ruddy cheeks were sort of unusual for his age, she thinks, as his jowls and under-eyes are puffy and wrinkly. Probably younger than he looks but for all that lyrium they’re made to drink. She thinks, with the lightness of air and concentration wavering from those thousand steps, Fen’harel rarely drinks lyrium, doesn’t he? She had never seen him drink it, at least, and it comforts her somewhat.

 _Ugh, he’s a wicked wizard,_ she scolds herself from thinking anything well of him, making her come here like this, and go there and ordering her to cook and mend his clothes and not to clean even though that’s what she was there to do anyway.

The Ruddy Cheeked Knight-Templar speaks with someone on the way up, and out comes Wynne. She looks just as she did before, grey hair pulled back tight against her skull and kept in a bun, dark red and plum robes form fitting and yet not immodest or even the slightest bit suggestive.

“Have I met you before? You look so familiar.”

“Oh, we’ve met, but only in passing really,” she replies, which is true but not necessarily. “I am Velanna’s Grand-aunt.”

“You resemble her so! Of course! I am sure we have met before.” Wynne takes her hand, and the passing of something shivers through her without the glow that usually accompanies Fen’harel’s spells. She wonders what she had done it for, but it helps her energy. They continue up the stairs without her gripping hold of Feynriel.

“You are not in the Circle, child?”

“Ah, well, I’m apprenticing with Wizard Fen’harel.”

“Oh, a talented lad that one,” she laughs. “When I was a young one myself I had always wanted to apprentice with him. I had the opportunity to be taught by someone much more suited to me, I think, in the end. Strange that he is still so young while the rest of us have grown old. Ah, but such are the way of things. I am not sure I would want to extend my lifetime like that, anyway. Making deals with demons.”

The entire time Ellana has been looking for Velanna and not really paying attention to Wynne talk, thankfully Feynriel is occupying her just with his presence alone. She was a family friend from when Father was alive, and she was always this way. Chattier than she remembered, however.

When she took in a breath to continue, Ellana tries to slip in – “Velanna is –“

“You’ve come to check up on her, haven’t you? And I have been talking your ear off. Of course you are. She’s such an intelligent girl, and much an aptitude towards magic. Her and the younger sister switching places was such a cute trick, they didn’t think I would notice one of my own spells!” She began to chuckle softly with a smile. “I don’t mind. I would rather she be here if she wants to, not by force.”

“I thought all mages have to be in the Circle.”

“Well, certainly, but there are some exceptions, like apprenticeships with trained and respected Wizards like Sir Anders and Sir Fen’harel. And to be frank, our little Merrill was not interested much in training the type of magic we teach here. I know the Elves have a different, more practical way, of using magic, perhaps that is better suited to her.”

“She is certainly very happy in the Bakery.”

“I am glad to hear so. She’s a lovely young’in’. Velanna should be around here somewhere.”

But Ellana has found her already, sitting in a reading nook with Fen’harel lounging at her feet. He tenderly holds her hand lightly in his own, and she is gazing down at him as if he is the only man in the world worth wanting, and it seems Fen’harel has gotten there first and there is nothing she can do about it.

A dog winds around her feet, a basset hound that whines and certainly gives away her position. “Can you hush?” she whispers at it with some frustration, and it doesn’t really sound like a whisper at all, but he can’t hear her from his far away can he?

“It seems she is occupied. I should visit some other time.”

“It is a wonder that he has taken such an interest in her.”

“Who?”

“Fen’harel, of course. I thought you knew him.”

“Well, yes, but,” Ellana starts as they turn around and begin to head back down the stairs and down more stairs, outside, to yet more stairs.

“He’s visited her for well over a month now almost every day. She likes another boy somewhere, I am not sure which it is, to be quite honest relations within the Circle are looked down upon. I have tried to convince her that she should act like she has taken interest in him, he certainly would make a good teacher, much better than me, rather.”

“A good teacher? But he eats girl’s hearts.”

“Oh no, dear, no,” she laughs. “That’s just a silly blasphemous rumor. He could barely lift a finger against any one person, and a woman at that? The way he flounders from lady to lady? Oh no. Maybe in the sense that he makes ladies fall in love with him and he loses interest. A metaphor, so to speak. But he certainly eats no one’s heart.”

“How do you –“

“This has been happening for _years_ my dear. Years and years.” She laughs, fingers guarding a grin. “It may be too much to think that Velanna could hold his interest for more than a moment, but it is worth a try.”

“The golden balls –“

“I am not sure what they really are, but they have nothing to do with the girls, I assure you.”

At the foot of the stairs, Feynriel and Ellana stare at each other for a long moment while Wynne goes on about the prospect of what those ‘golden balls’ might be while skipping over the most salacious indications for the grace of the conversation and the dog shimmies and presses and rubs against her ankles in a whining sound. Eventually Wynne gets annoyed with the sound and picks up the dog.

It reaches towards her, its little arms and legs wiggling, and it seems they beginning to look sort of like person hands, and it’s sort of the last straw of the day really. “I really should be off. This heat is somethin’ bad for these old bones.”

“Yes! Yes, I understand. Please come back to visit me again, perhaps when the seasons change into something cooler. Not that Kirkwall gets much cooler but we could have tea then, I am sure that it is much too hot to have tea right now.”

“Yes, much too hot,” Ellana agrees, while Feynriel drags her away. “We should have tea.”

~

Feynriel is quiet all the way back to the castle, and when the arrive, beelines for the spell waiting for him on the table. He reads it, and reads it again, then quietly sets to work. Ellana settles into her chair and allows him his peace, listening to the little hum of Passion’s snores as he rests, needle and thread passing and moving and pulling.

“No need to break apart,” she whispers to the hole, in Feynriel’s shirt. “Are you not friends? Perhaps that is the reason you are not together now. Have you had a fight and decided to be apart? You should regret it now since there is a chasm between you and you were the happiest when you were together.”

Behind her the young wizard clanks and clamors, mixing and grinding herbs and various of substances. This continues for a while, for a couple of hours at least, but Ellana doesn’t make note of the time other than the light streaming in from the windows overhead moving from one direction to the other. She dozes for a while, and when she wakes she begins making dinner.

Onions, bacon, cabbage, mushrooms. She carefully slices each one, remembering a time not that long ago that it didn’t take her so long to prep for cooking. The heart of the cabbage and the outside leaves, the stems of the mushrooms, and the husk of the onions are accepted happily by Passion, making gobbling sounds and she was making little giggling sounds, forgetting she was old for just a moment.

**BOOM!**

She practically jumps into the fire, dropping her knife and cowering in the corner next to the hearth. The table splinters and breaks, glass slides, then crashes, several at a time over Feynriel’s worried cry.

“No, no, no!”

Slowly she turns, looking at the mess being made on the floor. The break in the table is steaming, and so is one of the spots on the floor, a plank turned greenish-blue smoke rising from it and all, seeming as if it may actually burn a hole in the wood.

“He won’t be too angry, will he?” she asks, standing.

“He’ll be angry,” Passion concedes, “Fen’harel is heartless, after all.”

“Quite,” she replies, and moves from her hiding place to help Feynriel pick up the remaining vials. “What are you working on?”

“This spell, it’s like a poem. I’m sure it’s a riddle.” He sighs. “And now I’ve broken the table, all the spells are mixed up and...” he sweeps two powders away from each other as best as he can with his hands when he finds them beginning to sizzle as they collide, snatching his hands back and shaking them in order to dispel the sting.

“This may not be the right way to go about this,” she suggests, and he nods.

“Allow me to clean this up, Mamaela,” he pushes her hands away, and she grouses at the endearment again. Perhaps he is teasing her because of Fen’harel’s plan to use her as his mother, perhaps it is simply a term of respect because she is old. Suddenly she feels much more frail. “I’d rather you not get hurt.”

_Well, it’s not like he’s wrong._

Instead she turns back to finishing supper. “Alright, then, lets look at the poem together.”

By time he finishes cleaning up the various powders, liquids, and gels, cleaning the glass, transporting everything to the other table on the other side of the entrance hall she had finished their meal. Dishing it out on plates with a wooden spoon, he brought their food to the table and places their utensils before setting the paper beside his plate and filling their glasses with water.

He takes a few bites, separating the mushrooms out of the cabbage and eating the onions one by one.

 _Go and catch a falling star_  
_Get with child an elfroot_  
 _Tell me where the past years are_  
 _Or who cleft the Formless' One foot_  
 _Teach me to hear the corpses groaning_  
 _Or to keep off Envy's stinging_  
 _And find what wind serves to advance an honest mind_

“Strange.” It really is all she can say while she chews, reaching over and picking the paper for herself and reading through the spell at least two more times. “What have you tried?”

“Well, I have been trying all the ingredients together. However, my interpretation of past years and the wind bit perhaps is where I am messing up.”

“You have the foot of the Formless One?”

“Well, not exactly, but powder made from the fungus.”

“The Formless One... had foot fungus? Formless must not be literal then.”

“I’m not so sure of the story myself.” He shrugs.

“So what ingredients are the others?”

“Ash of a burned out star, elfroot seeds, elfroot pollen, bone, darkspawn, corpses, spider venom-“

“Like the giant spiders in caves?”

“Yes, like those.” He takes back the spell and she can see his eyes moving back and forth, skimming it again. “For ‘past years’ I’ve used bone, soil, a claw of Dumat, blood from the Theirin bloodline...”

“And for wind?”

“An amulet of second wind.”

“What caused the table to break?”

“Tempest rune. That one broke the table.”

She sighs. There isn’t much that she could suggest. Poking at her now-cold cabbage, she frowns thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s not making something, it’s doing something.”

“How do you catch a shooting star?”

“I’m not sure. But we won’t know until we try, right? Got anything in there that will make you faster?”

“Sure I do. That’s an easy spell.”

“Bad idea,” grumbles Passion, leaning from the hearth. They look at him, and Ellana shrugs while Feynriel begins putting together his spell to make him faster. It is almost night, the sun is close to setting and they don’t have much time before the stars come out.

“Why?” She asks, finishing her food quickly then getting up from her seat to gather her shawl.

“It just is,” he says. “It’s a bad idea, don’t need a star for that anyway.”

“Do you know what we need?”

He pauses, then sighs. “No.”

“It’s worth a try. We’ll come back soon.”

With that and a few more moments of moving around, they pack everything they need up and go to the Eluvian to exit out of the green door. Down the mountain to the coast. 

“I feel bad... for spying on Fen’harel, even though I know you are worried for your niece.”  

His voice attracts her attention, but the nature of it sort of... her jaw tenses just a little.

“You see, he’s been good to me. He was all I had before I met Velanna. I was basically an orphan. I’m elf-blooded, but I’m sure you could tell.” A hand waves to indicate her wrinkled face, pointing out her vallaslin.

“Yes, but that doesn’t make you less of an elf to me,” she responds, and it’s the truth.

“That’s not how the Dalish saw it. I had an aptitude towards magic, my mother found when I was small. There were two choices, the circle and the Dalish.”

“You mother was Dalish?”

“Yes, and when she had me with a human, they made her leave. We ended up in the alienage, and my human father abandoned her. Hawke helped me get to the Dalish, but they did not welcome me. My mother passed away some time ago. I had nowhere to go, but I knew I could not go to the Circle. After revealing I am Somniari, they would have me made Tranquil – I just know it.”

With a bit of a frown, Ellana nods.

“I was making my way down Sundermount alone, which is scary and difficult for a child. Then I happened upon the Eluvian, walking leisurely across the rocks. When I walked up to it, it let me inside. Passion began speaking to me, and teaching me small things right away.”

“And Fen’harel?” she can’t help but ask.

“He didn’t even acknowledge me at first but... eventually he just began to act like I belonged there all along. No questions of how or why I got there, just accepted me just as I was.”

Was it because Passion liked him? It seemed the same case with her, right?

Huh! 

“He’s like... an older brother.”

“Well, as a younger brother it’s your job to be annoying,” she laughs, and pushes his arm with the tips of boney fingers. “I’m the eldest of three, I know what a younger sibling is supposed to be like. You’re rather kind for a brother. You can afford to be silly once in a while.”

Feynriel laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s so severe, he needs a kick in the pants once in a while.”

Out of the corner of her eye, though, just as she thought there was not going to be any shooting stars tonight, she sees it, turns and points and shouts (she’s not really sure what word it becomes some sort of sound in the end) and he’s off as fast as the wind. The dust of the spell he throws over himself wafts behind him in a cloud as he runs so far that he’s a blur towards where the star will land.

When he catches it, it’s a small thing, a glowing little light in the palm of his hands, almost gone. Breath heaving, his fingers curl around it as it shrieks-

“Let me go!! I want to die!”

And the shock of it prevents him from moving to respond. He only gasps as it leaps through his fingers and into the water, sizzling and dimming to nothing.

The spell wears off, and he realized he’d been running on top of the water, cursing when he falls in and has to swim to shore.

It’s a long, cold walk back.


	6. The Curious Grandma

Ellana starts when a mountain of boxes falls into her lap. She sucks in a sharp breath when the corner of one box knocks against her forehead. A hat box narrowly stopped from rolling into the fire by a toe.

“What is the meaning of-“

“There are many things I dismiss due to expectation, but this treatment is most rude.”

“Certainly, you are overreacting.”

“I am _not_!” He snaps, arms folding. “I am the Lord of this castle and when I enter it, there should be a greeting.”

“ _I_ never say ‘Hello,’” Passion notes but Fen’harel ignores him.

Feynriel stands from his seat.

Her brow raises and a hand waves to relax the boy. “On dhea, _da’len_ ,” she says, and Fen’harel growls, and Feynriel’s laugh is caught by a hand and stuffed into a coughing fit. “Now, what is all this?”

“I could not send my _Mamae_ to the Vicount looking as if she has crawled through the sewers.” He waves a hand. “Open them.”

But she had already began pulling at the ribbons of the box in her lap, having piled the others neatly on the floor as he complained. Within the first and largest box laid a silk dress, olive green and iridescent. In the next there is a cream lace shawl. “This is too much, it’s too expensive.”

Feynriel is also handed a few boxes, which he opens. A purple page boy’s suit is inside. “This used our entire savings, didn’t it?”

“Do you like them?”

“Will we be able to eat this week?” Feynriel frowns.

“Perhaps you should take this job anyway,” Ellana tells him. “Or return these to the store.”

“Thank you for your gratitude,” Fen’harel gripes as he sits at the corner of the bench closest to her and leans against the table.

Ellana sighs and shakes her head. “You should take these back, I’m not going to go to the Vicount.”

It’s his turn for his brows to raise. She watches as his face hardens, and whatever his moods or his complaints, she knows that he is being playful in his own irritating way. “You must.”

“I refuse to help you get out of something you don’t want to do for the sake of your laziness.”

Blue flint. Staring into them is like staring at a glass bobble. They shine, but they do not glisten with life, something she has noticed before. But now... “Would you like more slime?”

“ _What?”_

“Slime.”

“Are you truly threatening me with a temper tantrum? A centuries old wizard threatening someone by acting like an infant.”

“Yes.”

Her mouth gapes open and she looks to Feynriel whose eyes plead for her compliancy.

“Please just do it,” Passion sighs. “He may actually put me out this time.”

With a furrowing of her brow, her eyes turn back to Fen’harel, whose blue marble orbs have not left her for even a moment. “You have not _asked_ me to do anything.”

“Ellana, will you go to the Vicount and blacken my name?” He asks as if it pains him to be polite. “Please?”

“I suppose,” she relents at last, turning back to the next box and opening it to find a pair of ankle boots. They are grey with a small wooden heel and bows adorning the front. “Lets see if these are the right size,” she takes off her shoe and replaces it with the new one.

The tension of the room relaxes, Feynriel letting out a breath that he was secretly holding and going back to his own boxes. “We’ll have to scrounge for food for a bit, but it won’t be bad,” he says, trying to abate his own fears more than anything, she suspects.

She begins to go back over each item with a new eye, each little sound of awe she makes pulling Fen’harel’s stress from him. There is something very young about the way she coos over the silk dress and its matching lace trim to the lace shawl, made from the finest material in Val Royeaux. It is an expertise from working in the hat shop beside her Father for her entire life, and it is a real thing when she glances at him with eyes wide as saucers, fingers carefully testing seams and stroking fabric.

Eventually, she turns to face him again, to see his face has softened somewhat. “This is too much,” she says, and it is a quiet, astonished thing. “I dont-“

He leans to her then, a hand landing on her shoulder. “Only the best for-“ he pauses. An emotion passes over his features that he doesn’t seem to understand, since it finds him closing back off even though he smiles.

Instead, he stands and he turns his attention to Feynriel. “So, how has this spell been coming along?”

A hand passes over Feynriel’s face. “I need help with it. I can’t figure out the riddle.” He hands the paper over.

Confusion mars his features for a moment, and as Ellana is carefully folding the clothing and putting it back into the boxes, he rounds on her. “This is your doing!”

She is too old for this, she thinks, and doesn’t even respond this time.

“This isn’t the spell I left you, Feynriel,” he laughs, but it isn’t a happy one. “You didn’t try to catch a falling star, did you?”

“Well, sure we did, that’s what the spell says t-“

“Was this _your_ idea?” He bellows at her.

“Why?” she asks in return, weary.

“I tried to tell them not to,” Passion says before Fen’harel can turn his fury at him.

“But you did not tell them _why_ did you?”

“Well, no, but –“

“Why would you do this? How did this happen?”

“How did what happen? You gave him the spell.” Ellana is frowning deeply now, feeling older and more tired by the second.

“I did _not_ give him this spell,” he snapped. “It’s not even a spell, it’s a poem. Where is the rest of it?”

“How should I know?”

“What did you _do?_ ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You must.”

“But you caught a falling star, too, did you not?” Passion cuts through the conversation.

“Yes, and look where it got us.”

_Oh._

Fen’harel is thoroughly upset, but it is this question that stops the tirade, finally. He blows all the air out of his lungs. “It seems you are intent on destroying me, Miss Ellana.”

“What?”

“You opened the black door, did you not?”

Her mouth fell open to deny it, as it surely was something she wasn’t supposed to do. She’d forgotten all about it, so miniscule of an event that she hadn’t made note of it in her mind at all. She had done it when she had first arrived and realized the different colors of the Eluvian’s cycling led to different places.

The black door was inky and shuddered like water before a storm. A hand she had put through it, and it felt different than the other doors. This had frightened her, and she did not go through.

Ellana cannot deny it, but why would she? Surely, it cannot be that bad. Surely, he is overreacting like usual. “For a moment. I did not go through. It was... odd.”

His eyes close and his shoulders sag. Fen’harel takes a deep breath and blows it back out through his nose, as if he is stabilizing himself. “Since this is here, we might as well go get the rest.” Moving to the Eluvian, he lets it arrive at the black door. “Come now, since you are so nosy I might as well show you myself.”

 

 

“You must be from the beginning of time, even older than Mamae,” says the woman who hands Ellana a teacup and makes servants bring her extra pillows to sit upon. She lounges delicately upon the floor, white silk spread beneath her as if there is nothing that could possibly happen to it. “Andaran atish’an, Mamaela.”

“En'an'sal'en sul mar arla.”

“Leave her be, Sylaise. She isn’t a relic.”

“You should be more respectful of the few of the People we have who are _truly_ elderly. There are not many who have lived that long.” she scolds Fen’harel, turning her attention back to Ellana. Ellana’s brows raise at him, and the corner of her mouth quirks upward.

“Serannasan ma, da’len.” Ellana tilts her head slightly, taking the glass of dark red wine and sipping from it. “He is quite insufferable, really.”

“He leaves things quite a mess when he was here, also, Mamaela. You should’ve seen his quarters. They were terrifying before I had them cleaned. He is so intolerable about anyone entering his rooms that I had to wait until he was away!”

“Ah, sounds like him. His entire castle is horrifying.”

“You had my room cleaned?”

Sylaise ignores him. “Your accommodations are well, assuredly?”

“Oh yes. I have nothing to complain about.” She replies, since she knows later that he will freak out if she doesn’t.

“Are you sure?” She pins him with a pointed stare. “You’re not making her do things, are you?”

“She does them quite on her own,” he glares at her. “What did you do to my rooms?”

“You’re lying, Solas. You have all this powerful magic and you can’t clean for yourself? Do we not have enough money for you to hire servants?”

_Solas? So what door gets the real name?_

“She’s not as old as you think she is,” he snaps.

“How dare you!” She straightens and leans across the low table, jabbing a finger at his chest. “ _Apologize.”_

“Excuse me?”

He has only apologized to her one time, and it was only when he was undeniably in the wrong. Ellana has to stifle a smile as Sylaise continues to berate him. “You heard me. _Now._ ”

“Ellana, tell her-“

“ _Solas._ ”

“Ir abelas, Mamaela.” He says, knowing if he doesn’t say it kindly that she will just scold him more.

“It is quite alright, da’len, but I appreciate your concern.” Her gnarled fingers curl around Sylaise’s hand.

“You’ve earned rest, you’ve earned it to enjoy every moment you have left.”

“That is a long time yet, dear.” she assures, gently.

She doesn’t seem to believe her, but they are interrupted by a man entering. He looks around at the people present and raises an eyebrow at how Sylaise is holding Ellana’s hand vehemently. “Is something wrong?”

“Solas has been treating Mamaela Ellana very badly. Perhaps she should stay with us instead.”

“June, I am not –“

This June, however, moves to sit to Ellana’s other side and lifts her hand to press her fingers to his lips. “Ha’hren. We will draw the jury this moment and he will be punished.”

“That’s n-n-not necessary,” she sputters, eyes blowing wide.

“Just because we are Evanuris does not mean we do not know where even _our_ respect is due,” Sylaise answers. “I am sorry that _Fen’harel_ disgraces us so. He is such a lone wolf that he does not know how to live in society anymore, it seems.”

“He hasn’t done anything that deserves more than a stern talking to, and perhaps a time out,” Ellana chuckles a bit, grinning at her charade. She knows they are much older by a mile, but she presumes they have never met an elf who is old enough to look aged before in their world. Telling them so would give them away substantially, and Fen’harel didn’t want them to know that she wasn’t from Arlathan.

And so, she is simply playing along.

It seems he gives up, leaning with an elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. Lone wolf, huh?

“Allow us to make you comfortable here in the capital,” Sylaise continues.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” she shakes her head. “Besides, you have done more than what was necessary.”

“How so?”

“Simply by meeting you in the flesh. You are much kinder than I would have ever thought.” Her eyes flickers to Fen’harel. “No offense meant, of course.”

“I know, Mamaela. Solas must have not given you the greatest impression of us at all.” She glares sidelong.

“While you speak, I just want to check my rooms, if I can.”

“There’s nothing in them. I told you, I had them cleaned.”

His mouth opens at first to protest, eyes flickering with a spark of anger. June next to Ellana pulls her attention away and to him, asking her questions. “What did you do with my things, then?”

“The books we sent to the Vir Dirthara. Everything else we just... we threw out. You made it very clear last time you were home that you did not intend on living here again and so...”

His voice lowers, a deep rumble of a sound and the blaze of those marble orbs. “ _What?_ ”

“I’m very sure you can hear.”

A deep inhale through his nose, then exhales through the mouth. “Right.” He unfolds a paper and thrusts it at her. “This poem, do you recognize it?”

She spends a moment scanning it. “Sure I do. That is the poem the children were memorizing for their studies. Numin was looking for it all day about two weeks ago. Why?”

“I just need to see the rest of the poem. I’ll go see Numin, then.” His eyes fall back to Ellana but when he finds her occupied, he heaves himself up to go find him.

Instead, Sylaise raises his hand to stop him. “Numin is visiting Andruil in her holdings.”

Again his eyes seem to scan the four of them, and he seems to make a decision, turning his attention back to Ellana. “Would you like to meet Andruil, then, Mamaela?”

“Perhaps she should stay here,” Sylaise hastily cuts in. “She’ll be fine until you return.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“No,” June answers, and Sylaise sends him a withering look. “Well, yes. If anyone would treat you worse than Solas, it would be Andruil.”

“I can certainly hold my own against that,” she laughs, as if they are worrying for nothing at all. They do not know her, of course, they wouldn’t be able to guess whether she could or not. “I do hope she is funnier when she is angry.”

“You presume I will anger her.”

“Oh, I am sure of it. It is what you do best, after all.”

And once again he opens his mouth to send sharp words back at her, but realizes she is merely returning his own back to him. Fen’harel stands, and rounds the table in order to offer her his hand. “Allow me to be polite, for once, Mamaela.”

She rises with June’s help, and waves Fen’harel away. “Let’s not start that.”

 

 

Ellana can tell as soon as they see each other that there is some sort of history there. She’s not sure what, but she is definitely sure that she doesn’t like it.

“Andruil,” he says, and bows at the waist to her, with the sweep of an arm that belies more than he thinks it does.

The young woman, Andruil, watches Fen’harel, then turn her eyes to Feynriel and Ellana. Feynriel copies Fen’harel, while Ellana bows her head slightly, crossing her feet at the ankles, and dipping only the most miniscule amount.

“What do you want?” she grouses.

“I’m looking for Numin.”

“And what for?”

“I am merely looking for the rest of a poem. I cannot remember how it continues.”

“And so you’ve come all the way here.” Her voice goes deadpan as if he is completely daft. While that’s true much of the time, Ellana is sure this isn’t one of them. Instead, she turns her eyes to Ellana. “What business do you really have? I know your trickery, Fen’harel.”

“There is none other than the poem,” he insists.

“There must be, or you would not bring this... _thing_ here with you.” Her eyes turn to look at Ellana again, a hand waving in her general direction. “What do you want me to do with it?”

Ellana’s brows arch with amusement, directly at Andruil. “You do not need to do anything with me, dear.”

“Why is it speaking to me?”

“Because you have addressed me. Da’len.”

This makes Andruil bristle. There is something in her thoughts that contorts her face, making her tersely turn away from Ellana but keeping her focus on her from the corner of her eye. “You will have to do something for _me_ then.”

“For a poem.” The ‘really?’ is implied, Ellana thinks, and almost chuckles. He is beginning to be short with her. Ellana finds herself a place to sit. It isn’t hard, the place is massive. “What is it that you want?”

“It depends on how long you will be staying. In the meantime, I can dispose of your old hag for you.”

“I am warning you, Andruil.” His voice lowers an octave, the one where he gets all stern and unmovable. Ellana wonders, as much as he can’t stand her he tries to protect her?

_He needs you to go to the Vicount, remember?_

“Lay a finger on Mamaela and it will not end well for you.”

“Such wondrous threats,” Andruil purrs, a feral grin, and now her attention is no longer on Ellana but on Fen’harel. “This is the Fen’harel that I remember best.”

“You mean where you provoke me to the point of starting a war?”

“Our little game. It was such fun back then! Won’t you come back to Arlathan?”

His hands clasp behind his back and she stalks around him like a cat. “The poem, Andruil.”

“You’re no fun.” She sighs heavily in return and shakes her head. “Follow me to the inner wing, then, so I may fetch Numin.”

“What would the boy be doing in your chambers?”

“I didn’t say my chambers,” she snaps. “I said my wing! Where do you think I place guests?”

“The guest wing.”

“I’ve renovated since then.” Andruil’s arms cross over her chest. “Come, or I refuse to get the boy.”

“I will simply go to the Vir Dirthara. The spirits there will know what I look for.”

“Then go! Ghilan’nian has made me better wolves anyway!”

He doesn’t grace her with an answer. Moving to Ellana, he leans to offer her his arm. She wraps her fingers into the crook of his elbow before he takes the other hand with his own to help her up. It’s a show, after all, make it good.

“Who is the Master and who is the Servant?” Andruil spits at him, but he continues to guide Ellana gently to the Eluvian at the other end of the throne hall. His fingers upon the Eluvian...

“Fen!”

It’s the sound of a little boy’s voice, and they turn to look at him.

_Well, that’s interesting for new developments, right?_

“Ba'isa'ma'lin!” the boy calls for Fen’harel a second time in a sing-song voice. Andruil’s hands twitch as she makes fists at her sides. Who had brought the boy in here?

“Go back to your rooms, Numin,” she sneers.

“How come?” he turns in the middle of the room to look at her for the split second that he is facing her during the spin, stopping himself when he is facing Fen’harel again and continuing towards them.

“Because I said so!”

“That’s not a good reason, Druuu-illl! I haven’t seen Uncle Fen in a _long_ time!”

“Who brought you here? How did you know he came to see you?”

“Did he?” the child feigns astonishment, not well but it pulls a smile over Ellana’s lips anyway. It makes Andruil seethe, which satisfies her all the more. “That’s really nice of you, Uncle Fen. How come you came here to see me?” Then his eyes fall to Ellana and Feynriel. “Ah – ah-uh-um.” He stumbles a bit, then bows low. “Please forgive me for my rudeness. Andaran atish’an, Mamaela.” He reaches out to shake Feynriel’s hand. “Hi, new friend! My name is Numin.”

Andruil watches from the dais at the other end of the room. She says nothing but slumps in her chair, sprawling with her leg over the arm, fingers turning the stem of a wine glass. Someone must have brought it to her when Numin arrived.

Ellana reaches out to fix Numin’s hair a bit. “There, that’s a lad,” she praises him with a smile.

“I’ve never met someone as old as you, Mamaela,” he tells her with a bit of an apology in his voice. He means that he doesn’t know what to do or say, she knows.

“That’s alright, da’len. Neither have I,” she laughs.

“That’s not so good, is it?”

“As long as I continue to see good children like you growing up, it is much better than you think.”

“Thank you,” he blushes. “How come you’re here?”

“We’re after a poem. We’d like to find the rest of it, if we can.”

“Oh? That’s what I’m learning about!”

Ellana nudges Fen’harel, whose eyes seemed to have glossed over, deep in thought.

Feynriel knows it, though, and covers for him. “It’s, uh, Go and catch a falling star, get with child an elfroot –“

“I had to study that one!”

In the background, on the dias, Andruil drops her wine and it crashes to the ground. She scolds a slave for not cleaning it up properly, her black and cool white marble floor possibly staining because of the wine. No one pays her attention.

“Yeah, we need the rest of it. Do you know it?”

“Sure, I have the rest of the poem!”

Andruil looks duly cowed as Numin goes and runs to get the rest of his assignment, their group waiting patiently. Fen’harel can’t help the smirk that spreads his lips.

“I don’t know how you lured him out. Mischievous of you, Fen’harel. Ghilan’nain will be home soon; I’m sure she won’t appreciate you being here. You should leave.”

“Ghilan’nain? Has she not been missing?”

“Not missing, just _away_. She has more things to do than bother children about poems.”

“Ah, a spectacular life, then,” he answers, dripping in sarcasm.

Numin returns with a sheet of paper and thrusts it at Ellana with glee. Fen’harel looks down at it, and Ellana takes it, pressing it to her chest. “Ma serannas, da’len.”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course!” There is a bit of a happy step he does, from one foot to the other. “What’s it for?”

“Nothing much,” Fen’harel grins.

 

 

 _If thou beest born to strange sights, things invisible to see_  
_Ride ten thousand moonlit filled days and nights_  
 _Til age snow white hairs on thee_  
 _Thou when thou returnst will tell me all strange wonders that befell thee_  
 _And swear nowhere lives a woman true and fair_

 

 

Fen’harel waits until they are outside to read the poem, and sighs. “It’s almost time,” his head shakes.

“Time for what?”

“I must confront the Witch of the Wilds. My time is about up. I can’t possibly deal with Prince Seamus’ disappearance _and_ Anders on top of this.”

It’s now that she feels a bit bad for him. Just a little. “This poem is about you?”

“No. It was written well before the curse was placed upon me. She used it as a, say, guideline.”

“Ride ten thousand moonlit filled days and nights. Does that mean your birthday will come soon?”

“No, no. It is ten thousand days from the day upon which she laid the spell. Which is precisely a month from now.”

“Have you been ignoring her all this time?”

“Ignoring? Not quite. Running away? Yes.” He laughs ruefully, and Ellana thinks for a moment he deserves it if he is just going to run away from everything all the time. “It is time to face her, or the curse will never be broken.”

Fen’harel folds the poem and tucks it into the inner pocket of his jacket.

“I hope you are satisfied.”

Ellana looks up, startled. “I have not said anything.”

“Yes. Let us forgot about the whole thing, if you will.”

She looks at his face and how it is drawn taught. But there is one more thing that she wants to know. “But, Solas –“

“Is my given name. You may use it, if you prefer.”

“Do _you_ prefer it?”

A smile forces its way through his stony expression. “I do. It is who I am, after all.”

“Fen’harel is –“

“-an insult, in fact. One that I adopted merely to spite them.” To show them he was not weak, of course, she nods like she understands.

“Solas, then.”

And the rest is not brought up again. At least, for the time being.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:
> 
> ba'isa'ma'lin: uncle  
> on dhea: good morning  
> En'an'sal'en sul mar arla: blessings upon your house (used because it is archaic and formal)  
> mamaela: grandmother  
> mamae: mother  
> Serannasan ma: thank you (like ma serannas but switched up)


	7. The Courageous Copout

It’s rather silly, but she has no idea where they are going.

She doesn’t like it. Ellana leans upon her walking stick.

He said, they were going to visit his teacher first, someone much more intimidating than the Viscount. After dealing with her, she would have no problems dealing with him.

She didn’t say yes to _both_ , only the one. Yet here she is, hiking through the Exalted Plains. It’s hot as sin and she’s certainly going to sweat through the silk. What in the world is she even wearing this shawl for anyway? Not that lace is going to make her feel hotter, but in this a flea could make her sweat a thousand gallons more. It seems he will coerce her into whatever he wants her to do. It’s not fair, really, making an old lady trudge through this heat.

It is Fen’harel, after all. He can’t care less.

_Selfish little tit. Arrogant brat. Self-righteous. Self-absorbed. Self-centered. Manipulative. Jerk._

_Absolutely heartless._

The insults make her feel better even though they don’t make her cooler.

_Think cold thoughts. Cold like his stupid face. And his stupid voice. And his stupid personality._

“Ellana,” he turns to look at her over his shoulder from several feet in front of her. She has stopped walking, heaving the dusty air through her lungs. He looks rather irritated. “You’re being quite slow.”

“I’m ninety years old walking through a desert and you’re going to be annoyed that I am walking too slow. Why didn’t we come on horseback? Or if you’re such a powerful wizard, why didn’t you teleport us there?”

“Even in Arlathan we do not have teleportation magic.”

“Then what do you do?” Her head shakes. “This place is horrendous. Why would your teacher be out here?”

“You are in a complaining mood today.” Fen’harel turns around and takes the few steps with his long stride to move to her, leaning down to offer a hand.

She narrows her eyes at him, and then to the hand, like it offends her personally and rightfully and thoroughly. Instead of being put off, he takes the hand he is looking for himself, and tucks it into the crook of his elbow.

Instantly, she feels cool.

_Bastard._

He chuckles. She realizes she’s growling and stops. He clears his throat.

After some time, they reach a mansion which is dilapidated, fallen beams and overgrowth peaking between cracks in mortar. Where stucco has flaked away and great mosaics lined whole hallways remain a semblance of what once was perhaps over a thousand years ago. She’s impressed with the ruin, but she’s not going to let it show on her face. Instead, she turns a frown at the place and picks up the hem of her dress so it doesn’t touch the water they step in.

“Come, Mamae.” Pulling her gently, he leads her up a ledge that prevents her from stepping through the murky mess, which had the smell of mold and mildew and rot along the edges of each breath.

“I don’t need your help, da’len.”

The worse mood he put her in, the happier it seems he becomes. Nonetheless she grips his arm a little harder when she wobbles along the ledge, and he doesn’t complain as he slogs below her through the water. For once, they’re about the same height. She can feel something tingle against her skin, sinking in and finding purchase there.

“Why didn’t you bring Feynriel with us?”

“I was not quite sure if he would be prepared for what he is to see.”

“Then why would you bring me here? To put me out of my misery, Fen’harel?” she snapped.

“You wound me, Mamae,” he grins. “You know my name, besides.”

She huffs. “You know my name, also, and you refuse to use it.”

“If I am to pass you off as my mother, would it not be revealing of me? Though, it may be a foiled pretense, now.”

“Why?”

His eyes close a moment, even though he doesn’t steer her wrong or even catch his foot upon a rock. “Because Wisdom is everywhere.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to ignore you because you’re being stupid.”

“Ah,” his mouth spreads wider. He seems confident, more than usual, in his purple suit and shining white smile. The dimple at the base of his chin deepens, and Ellana gets angrier that she’s noticed.

There is no Page to take them further inside. Fen’harel creates light from a wave of his hand when it gets too dark to see where they continue, green-blue-white in the sconces.

He hums as she gasps, looking around and forgetting her charade for a moment, eyes large, wide, and young. “I’ve never seen fire that color before.”

“It’s more precisely, the memory of a flame, pulled through from the fade. If you touch it, it will not be hot.”

“I’d rather not risk it.”

He chuckles. “Don’t worry, I would heal it anyway.”

“You’re quite confident in your abilities.”

“Always.”

There is a dais in the back of the large, two floor room. The middle of the room is missing in order to show a high ceiling for the bottom floor, which had a statue of a wolf in the center. The marble was somewhat like the floors she saw in Arlathan, opposite tiled, marble, high contrast colors, except this one was gold and... something tarnished now. Perhaps it was once ivory. It was as she imagined many of the palaces in the Emerald Graves to be like still, except this place was much older, theirs made to mimic something that was part of their history long ago.

Fen’harel grabs a torch of his green-blue-white fire before approaching.

“Sileal,” he calls out, looking around once they reach the broken throne in the center of the dais.

“Solas!” Something calls back, materializing from thin air to sit on the throne. “Oh, you have brought someone for me to meet?”

Ellana rears back from it and Fen’harel reaches an arm around her shoulders. “This is my Mamae,” he tells it. It is black from head to toe in the shape of a person, a woman, but not quite, not entirely really. Parts and pieces seem to float away from it, and disappear into thin air, and it wavers in and out of her sight as if it will disappear at any moment.

“Your... Mamae...” it repeats, and its backlit coal eyes seem to turn to her to see her. A shiver runs from neck to tailbone. It doesn’t sound as if it believes him. And, more than anything, it speaks entirely Elvhen. That’s... unexpected. Even as he speaks common to it, it seems to understand him and respond in their native language. “It’s nice to meet you, then,” it continues after it seems to concede.  

“Nice to meet you too.”

“I take it he hasn’t spoken much of me.”

“No, no he hasn’t.”

“I suspect he’s afraid you’d refuse for real this time.”

“I don’t seem to have many choices these days.”

Fen’harel clears his throat. “Of course you do. We could leave now if you wanted.”

“Let’s lea-“

“Mamae is-“

“Could you leave us to speak, then, Solas?”

Ellana trembles. Fen’harel lets his arm tighten just so slightly. “Surely you have more words for me.”

“The both of us, we created you. It is time that we have a chance to speak to each other.”

“Have I not created myself even somewhat?”

“Of course. And those are the parts I most dislike, _Pride_. You will not much enjoy listening to yourself being spoken about, I assure you. Peace, ma falon.”

The tiniest squeeze, then his arm leaves her completely. Fingers clasping behind him, he bows slightly, and backs away.

When she turns to look for him, he’s gone.

“Don’t worry, he hasn’t left you.” Sileal attempts to soothe her. “You have never seen a spirit before?”

“No,” she frowns. “We have stories of them and they are all –“

“It is for the best,” it nods, even though it doesn’t really move it seems like it does. _Oh I’m so confused,_ Ellana thinks. “So many of us have not remained intact, it is best for us to be avoided.”

“Why would you say –“

“Solas is not doing well, I see.”

Ellana’s mouth opens, and then snaps closed with an audible click. How does it know? I have not even figured out the terms of the curse and it can just tell by meeting him for a few moments? Sileal.

_Wisdom, all right._

“His clothes,” it answers her question. “I am... disappointed.”

Ellana shrugs. “It’s just the fashion. He’ll move on as the rest of them do.”

“No, no. With powerful magic like yours, you must have to be able to see it.”

“I’m not a –“

“It’s rather uncouth of him, besides. He’s never needed a dazzling charm in order to win over women. Personality has always been enough to make them fall for him.”

 “A... love spell?”

“Oh yes, darned right into the seams, actually. Specifically, for a young lady fit for marriage. A charm that strong and that undetectable would bring the most difficult young lady to her knees. Has he been practicing blood magic?”

“Is blood magic inherently bad?”

“No, it is not. But in the hands of someone with a moral code so tarnished, it may cause... unwanted conflict.”

_I knew Fen’harel was wicked! What a skilled man he must be to be so persuasive!_

“Ellana. Your name tells me much about you. I will be relying on you to break his curse. He is bound by duty, determined, unable to be swayed. You... you may be the only one who can.”

 _Did I ever tell it my name?_ “I can’t even figure out what the curse is, let alone break it. I’m not... very good at this.”

“I will perish soon.”

This gives Ellana a good start, and she stumbles back a few steps. “You shouldn’t say things like that or they’ll come true!”

“I’m sure. Do not worry about me, though, I’ve been around for... thousands upon thousands of years. Longer than even Solas can imagine. But you must act for me, now.”

“Why me? I... I’m just a little old lady! I’ll die sooner than you will, for sure.”

Sileal seems to smile, or at least Ellana thinks she does, and it’s sad. Is it pity? Or is it knowing? It seems like it _knows_ and this unnerves her even more. The trembling begins again. “Something has happened to him that is to the detriment of this world, and if it is not put right, this whole world may perish.”

“He’s not _that_ powerful, is he?”

“ _Yes.”_

Ellana swallows. “Okay. I need to find the Royal Wizard Anders, then, so he can deal with this.”

“Oh no, Justice is having his own set of problems.”

 _Justice?_ “The Witch of the Wilds?”

“Perhaps, I cannot say for sure. I have not met them in the fade for a long, long time.”

“How did you meet Fe- Solas, then?”

“He sought me out in the fade, some time ago. When he left Arlathan, he called upon me again to help him adjust.”

“How am I supposed to help?”

“I need you to tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Ellana,” the spirit rumbles softly, almost like an endearment, as if she means more than just her name.

She sighs. “All I know is that there is a curse upon him from the Witch of the Wilds, and he has to confront her about it. Passion says I must break the spell. I presume it ties them together or something. He can’t leave the hearth because of it.”

“Passion,” it is obviously thinking. “You mean, a Rage demon.”

“I...” she had forgotten. “Yes, I suppose he is.”

“The Witch of the Wilds made a deal with a rage demon a long time ago. She was not so bad before then. We do not know good and bad, not really, we are only the manifestation of the attributes that make up the mind here in the waking world. Rage emparts power, of course, but power breeds arrogance, and arrogance begets tyranny. Rage often can be bribed, but a spirit will never want riches or fame, and mortals can give only so much of themselves.”

Ellana sighs. “And I am the one who has to break the contract.”

“You’re the only one who can.”

“I don’t know how.

“I haven’t seen magic wands in a long time. Most wizards use staves nowadays.”

The abrupt subject change baffles her. She leans hard on her walking stick to keep her balance.

“Yes, that. You’ve talked to it for a long time, have you not? It seems to favor you. You’ve talked life into it.”

_That explains... so much._

“He becomes restless. I am glad he has...”

She can’t hear the last word it speaks, but she feels it, and she’s not so sure if she agrees.

 

 

The Viscount’s Keep is massive, at the edge of Hightown. She’d never had a reason to come here, but it could still be seen from a great distance. Flags and flags and more flags, that boring beige and a daunting amount of steps dropped a bucket of ice over her head. Inside wasn’t much better, and arguably worse than the Chantry, however much she avoided it.

She sits outside the door to the Viscount’s office, leaning on her walking stick and sharing a look of annoyance with Feynriel. They speak about the most mundane things, like the weather, which is blazing hot (as if it would be anything else this time of year, in Kirkwall of all places). Marlowe Dumar is keeping them good and waiting. Fortunately, an attendant is kind enough to bring them water.

Ellana can’t help but think about what Silael has revealed to her – that she has magic also, that it is in her speaking to things and it is something that she has taken to doing long ago just because. She thinks about all the things she has spoken to and –

For the life of her she can’t remember which suit he was wearing when he went to see Velanna.  

She sighs. It’s not something she is going to bring up, since he has all but forgotten about her since she fell for him. Poor Velanna. She’s smart and resourceful, right? She’d be just fine, won’t she?

She will. She has to believe so.

The door slams open, rattling against the stone wall. A guard with dark hair grumbles as he steps out, and someone else follows behind him with a decidedly fake smile plastered to his face. His red hair is swept to one side, a splattering of freckles over his cheeks so disguised almost completely by the tanning of his skin. Ellana stands to meet him, but Feynriel gets to his feet first and helps her up (to much of her chagrin. Must have been observing the man too much).

He sticks out a hand, sharp and quick. “Pleased to meet you, Mother of Wizard Wolfe.”

Ellana had to hide the little moment of surprise. She had forgotten all about _Wolfe_. “Likewise, Messere.” She takes the hand and shakes it firmly, but drops it as soon as she possibly can. “You are...”

“Seneschal Bran. Surely you have heard of me.” He sounds slightly irritated.

“The title, sure, though I have never had reason to encounter you,” her head tilts to look up at him, as it’s a way for her small stature.

“Ah, a good thing likely.” And she knows that sort of voice, the kind that’s being put on for politeness. She hates it. Perhaps she should slap him and see what would happen. “Please come with me. The Viscount is ready to see you.”

Feynriel guides her forward a few steps before they’re stopped again.

“Just you, Serah. I _am_ sorry.”

He could stick that sorry where – “It’s alright, Mamaela,” Feynriel interrupts her thoughts. “I will be waiting here for you to return.”

“Right,” she nods dumbly, and slowly, with all the ninety-year-old age she could muster, creeps along into the room.

Rather, the Seneschal becomes tired of being near her slowness and finally offers her his arm to help her along faster. _What a pompous, arrogant brat,_ she complains in her thoughts.

Half a mind to slow down even more. But only the one half.

“Announcing Mother to Wizard Wolfe, Ellana Wolfe.”

A long table covered in papers, curtains loose to not allow light into the room, red, red and more red everywhere. The curtains and the walls, the sconces and the carpet, the upholstery of the furniture. Even the Viscount wore red, leaving her thinking _isn’t this a bit much?_

“Welcome, Mrs. Wolfe,” he greets more warmly than his second in command, and got up himself to greet her, taking her from Bran’s arm and leading her the short distance to a chair. It takes her quite by surprise. “Now, what would bring you here instead of your son?”

_Yes, what would bring me here?_

Because while this is much easier than speaking to Wisdom, it really spoke to her, at her even, where he was asking her to speak to him. That was much worse. He is the ruler of their little country, as horrid as it was and how difficult it could be to live here as an elf or a mage. And then, what did he have any business saying no to him anyway? Oh, right, the curse. But the curse had something to do with this, she knew it did, because everything seemed to have to do with that man running away from it and all she was doing was helping him.

“He’s not going to find your son,” she blurts out from her thoughts, remembering now that she’s supposed to make him look the worst she can. “Messere.”

“He seemed quite eager when I spoke with him last.”

“Yes, you see, he didn’t know how to tell you. He like a little snake. Always wiggling away. A coward.” She nods. “What a son I have!” Ellana did her best to feign despair.

The Viscount leans forward in his chair with his chin in his hand. “Please, tell me more.”

Ellana doesn’t feel there is more to explain, however, and sighs dramatically with a hand pressed to her forehead. For effect. “He sends his own mother to beg for him and get out of this mess. Doesn’t that say enough?”

“I would make it worth his while if he were to agree.”

“Oh, he doesn’t care about money. The Witch of the Wilds just caught up to him, and he’s rather preoccupied with that.”

“As he would be. But, if you would, tell me more about _him_.”

More about Sol-Fen’harel? She has to say something to blacken his name! But for a moment her mind goes blank and she can’t think of anything bad to say about him at all. “He’s selfish, self-absorbed, and picky! Half the time I think he doesn’t care about anyone by himself as long as _he’s_ alright, but then I find that he’s done something extraordinarily kind. But! He’s only kind when it suits him... except that he undercharges people for his potions and... he’s a complete mess. Don’t you see?”  

“My impression of Fen’harel was a pompous, sneaky rascal, that is too clever for his own good.”

“Yes! You already understand, then.”

And so, he laughs, ripe and as if he needs it. “Of course.” He strokes the baldness of his head, and Ellana cannot help but think that So-Fen’harel looks much better bald. “He sounds like he is perfect for the job.”

“He –“ she gasps. “What?”

“You see, you have put much of my fear at rest. I knew it was strange that he agreed so readily to go into the wilds and find my son.” He takes off the metal circlet and rubs it with the edge of his billowy sleeve. “I thought it was only in it for the money. He could find any body and pawn it off as my child, I have already had a few do it.”

“Have you thought that he ran away by choice?”

“Oh, I know he did. He left to join the Qun.”

“The Qun?!”

“I was alarmed at first as well, but that is not the main reason I am looking for him. He is my son, and I care much for him. I want to see him content, but perhaps more than that I want to see him alive. No, I wish that was the only circumstance. He is a skilled strategist and we are at the cusp of war.”

“We are? This is the first that I have heard of it.”

“You are also a Witch, are you not? Surely you have heard of the unrest in the Gallows.”

“You are not afraid of the Qunari?”

“They have not given me a reason to worry from them. That situation is more complicated than it seems.”

“Complicated.” She sounds exasperated. “He’s not going to be happy that I have not succeeded.”

Dumar laughs a bit. “No, I suppose he won’t. He can’t get too mad at you, his dear old Mom.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I do have a message for him, Mrs. Wolfe. Tell him I am appointing him Royal Wizard, and he is under our Royal Command to find my son before the year is out.”

Marlowe Dumar escorts her to the door himself with a hearty laugh at her expense and another at Seneschal Bran’s. She supposes it’s because neither of them want to be in the situation that they’re in. “Escort her out, will you?” he says, and Bran is so close to making a sound beneath his status that his face twists up for a moment, and that’s when Dumar has another laugh and Ellana thinks this is going to make all of it even worse for her.

Fortunately for her, it’s not like there is anywhere to get lost, really, because one flight of stairs, along the long main foyer where everyone else was waiting to be seen (griping about an elf being seen before them), down more stairs, and out the door before the long double set of stairs there. Bran leaves her at the door, scurrying off faster than she can shake her walking stick at. Wondering passively all the while, where in the world had Feynriel gone anyway?

Breathing out a breath, she takes a long look at the steep and rather boring staircases and shakes her head.

 _It’s a matter of being the eldest,_ she thinks ruefully, blaming herself for her failure to disgrace Fen’harel. _It is what it is, I guess._

And so, it is these horrid staircases, two of them of at least a hundred steps each, that tower over the rest of the city with its flags and its guards and its marble inlays. All this boring beige, it almost makes her fall asleep as she descends. She has to adjust her hands on her skirts many times, making sure not to sweat into them. The guards do not bother to help, because why would they? From there it is hiking through Hightown with all its white marble and high walls and indiscriminant mansions. She pasts the same fountain twice.

Taking a turn, she sees the Witch of the Wilds coming towards her, and she almost stops. But she couldn’t possibly remember her right? She puts spells on everyone who crosses her path, right? Of course she does. And Ellana is far too tired now. Far too tired to even care. What could she do to her? Kill her? Or make her young again?

They cross paths at the junction of an alleyway. The Witch looks resplendent as usual, in a guise that breathes youth all around her but she knows that the Witch is much older than she looks or feels. It makes her feel a little better about the situation. A billowing red dress, with her white hair blowing in the wind and a red hat, the white stark against the setting sun. It was too much for Ellana’s elderly eyes, and she blocks it with a hand.

“Oh, Lavellan! Here to consult about your curse, are you?”

“My curse? You remember this old thing?”

“Of course I do! I remember every face I make,” she cackles. “It’s nevermind anyway, the only person you can consult to correct it is _me_ now.”

“What?”

“Your friend, Sileal. I needed information about Fen’harel and she wouldn’t give it to me. ‘Over my dead body’, she said, so I took her for what she’s worth.”

Making a scoffing sound of disapproval, Ellana shakes her head at her. “I would think that is even beyond you.”

“I do what needs to be done,” says the Witch.

“Obviously.” She frowns. “I’m not here to do whatever with whatever person you’ve killed. I’m going home.”

“And wherever would that be?”

“You already know! The hat shop!”

“Then I shall escort you.”

“I can get home, I know where I’m going!”

“Except this isn’t the way to the hat shop at all.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> Sileal - Wisdom (if you already haven't guessed. haha)


	8. The Cold Traitor

And so the Witch of the Wilds in all her splendor and her glory, swirling white hair and flowing red, a hand to her hat to keep it from blowing away, walks beside Ellana as she hobbles over the flagstone of Hightown. They travel in silence down the stairs, the Witch laughing somewhat at the length of time it takes Ellana to climb down them. She does not bother to hide her grinning with a hand, nor is she polite at all, really. Others give them a wide berth, swinging ‘round so they do not attract the Witch’s ire.

 _That’s fine. I’d gladly keep her attention if it saves someone else from this humiliation,_ Ellana thinks, pushing forward. _I am old enough where it means nothing, besides._

“What in the world did you do this to me for, anyway?” Ellana complains, arriving at the bottom of the stairs panting. At least the sun was beginning to set and taking some of the heat with it.

“Oh, you were merely in my way to finding Fen’harel, though I’m sure you didn’t know at the time.”

“I don’t know the man.”

“Surely you do.” The Witch leaned to her, towering over her.

“Only by hearsay,” Ellana lies. “He eats pretty women.”

The Witch laughs right in Ellana’s face, straightens and shakes her head. “Of course, you wouldn’t know him, unworthy as you are of the presence of such a man.”

Ellana would bristle if she was younger, at that. Instead she shrugs. “You deserve each other, with your despicable ways.”

“How right you are,” the laughter in the Witch’s voice doesn’t cease. “I deserve every bit of him.”

The laughter doesn’t disguise her seriousness at that, however, and this scares Ellana just a little. She avoids asking more questions, continuing on her way with a more determined pace, to lead the Witch away from him and Passion and Feynriel. At least she could do this, right?

When they reach the doors of the shop, the Witch stares pointedly towards a certain sign and Ellana glares and glares and the Witch just doesn’t seem to care one bit. And so, eventually, “Good night, Witch of the Wilds.”

“Such a rude old lady you’ve turned out to be,” she scolds, yet playfully. Why? Perhaps she feels safe with the crumbling old body she’s given Ellana, she couldn’t possibly do anything to hurt her.

Ellana glances at the sign, and realizes it’s a for sale sign. It might as well be as much, she says to herself, as she’s been absent for more than a few weeks and like Merrill said, Mother has no interest in it herself. Despite it, she pulls her own keys, waiting. “What is it that you’re looking for me to do?”

“You have not bothered to ask my name,” the self-assured Witch grins, as if it would reveal all about her. Ellana has no interest in learning her name, after all, but if it will make her go away faster...

“What is your name, then, Witch of the Wilds?”

“Mythal. What a pleasure it is for you to make my acquaintance.”

“I’m sure,” she holds back the urge to roll her eyes. “Now, I must bid you goodnight.” And with that Ellana unlocks the door and slips inside.

 

...

 

“-failed. I really-.”

“- worried about-”

“we’ve been up all-”

“kicked me out!”

They all tumble and jumble up, everyone yelling over each other to speak. S- _Fen’harel’s_ hands grasp Ellana’s shoulders with a grip that crushes, almost.

“Sileal –“

“-Mythal.”

“-miss you!”

“-is dead.”

“Please, let me go, Solas.”

In the shock of it, he does, and wrings his hands. The others stop speaking, and Feynriel sits, watching. And then, “Are you well?” Fen’harel asks in that deep, tender voice of his that belies real worry.

“I... really did try to blacken your name, Fen’ha-“

“Solas,” he interrupts.

“Solas,” she repeats, agrees. He takes her arms again, gentler this time, and guides her to the chair she sits in before the fire pit. He then sits at the edge of the bench and leans on his knees. “I’m so sorry. I am not-”

“You’re fine,” he interrupts again. “You mentioned... Mythal.”

Her eyes close and she sinks further into the chair. “Yes, she was on her way back from...” a wrinkled old hand swipes over her face, and she shakes her head. “I should have done something.”

“No,” it is firm, like a command, but undemanding still, somehow. “Tell me what happened.”

So she does, from the meeting with the Viscount to running into the Witch and every detail she can think of. He listens and shifts, leaning on the side of the hearth and weathering Passion’s flame as if there is no heat at all.

In the end, he dismisses it all anyway and makes an extra point of settling her to bed before retiring himself, even if it was only a few hours at this late hour.

 

...

 

Indeed, by time Ellana wakes in the morning, the sun shows at least half past noon. She descends the stairs herself, without Feynriel meeting her for breakfast as usual. He is working on a spell and so she sets about making lunch.

“Solas says not to open the door,” Passion tells her when she settles to the nearest clean table to begin chopping onions, tomatoes, some herbs, garlic. “The Witch knows about all of them except the Antivan door.”

This sets Feynriel in a bit of a panic, and Ellana wishes Passion had never said anything or at least had waited until Feynriel was out of earshot. Instead of working on his spell, he began hammering planks across the surface of the Eluvian. Only when it is secure does he go back to work.

Everything is fine for a while, then, tomato soup and ham and cheese sandwiches. Peas on the side with a small pad of butter. She cuts the crusts from her sandwich and throws them to Passion, a bit of a reward for being patient with her cooking.

Just as they were eating, the door rattles, the wood splinters. It is a bit strange she has to admit, and she finds herself thinking how fascinated she would be if she wasn’t terrified. The wall stays intact even as the Eluvian shakes and rumbles with the pressure of someone behind it, the glass of it black with a slight golden haze.

“Who is it, Passion? Can you tell?” She asks, even as Feynriel is saying something to her, standing in front of her.

“Don’t worry, Mamaela, I will protect you!” He swears, hands trembling at his side ball up into fists.

But the rattling stops, and they breathe out a sigh of relief.

Except, there is a forceful explosion, splitting the planks and sending them in every direction. Feynriel casts a barrier just in time to absorb a blow from a flying piece of wood headed straight for one of them. Instead it bounces off and skitters across the stone floor.

Solas steps through the Eluvian, wet from head to toe in that plum suit of his. Feynriel releases the barrier then, even as Solas is eyeing Ellana.

“Trying to keep me out of my own home, are you?” He asks her, sort of snidely in fact. She returns the question with a glare.

“I did that,” Feynriel admits. “Because the Witch –“

“Ah,” and this makes him chuckle. “There’s no need for anything like this. It’ll take weeks for her to breech all my wards.”

“There are wards around here?”

“Dozens,” he confirms with a nod of his head. “Make me something hot to drink, will you?”

But all Ellana can think of is the black door and what is beyond it. It slips before she can stop it, not really caring that he is dripping wet. “What about Velanna?” Because what else could he be doing other than trying to court _Andruil_ now (of all people!).

He pointedly ignores her question. “I am quite cold and would appreciate a warm drink,” he says a second time, with more hollow respect, sitting at the bench. But Ellana can only think of –

“But Velanna!”

“Is that all you think I do?” An eyebrow raises as he removes the purple coat and shakes it. The water is coming off in droves. After a few seconds of this shaking it is dry, so he put it back on.

“He’s going to put me out!” Passion screeches.

“I will not, you know it,” Solas replies casually.

_I mean, Fen’harel._

“What else are you doing coming back soaked like that for?”

He makes a noise at her, a little grunt sort of mixed with a scoff, a sound of disapproval. “May I keep anything for myself, Ellana?”

“Not when it involves my sis-“ she sucks in a breath, glancing around the room for a split second too long. “My sister’s child.”

He sneezes, once, twice. A wave of his hand draws a handkerchief from the air that he presses to his nose.

“How could you?” she sneers. He frowns down at her.

“I really have not done anything at all.”

Her mouth opens and her brow furrows and she really just can’t believe what she’d just heard. “Why won’t you solve this thing with Mythal? Or find Seamus. Or Anders. _Something_.”

“I _have_ tried to find them, both of them.” He does not have the energy to yell at her, nose red by now. There is a piece of chalk in the other hand now, somehow, and she notes that he’s left handed. Not that it meant anything. Not that she should be observing him so close that she notices.

“When?”

“When they first went missing, of course.” He shrugs. “I assume he went to look for Anders, and someone sold him a fake finding spell. He stopped by the Circle to get a proper tome so that he could perform the magic. At one point, he came here to purchase the spell and a disguise.”

“The man with the dark hair? In green?” Feynriel looks horrified.

“Yes, the very one. It’s fine. It would have been more trouble than it was worth.”

“What? How?”

“It would have placed Feynriel in danger. The Viscount would have decided if only we had sold Seamus a fake also, he would be here now.”

“Certainly, that’s not entirely true.”

“It is not,” he nods in agreement. “But that hardly matters to someone overcome with fear.” He clears his throat with wetness past his usual. His words are muffled as he brings the handkerchief up to his nose again. “You’ve cleaned most of my measurements from the walls. We will have to start over to move the Castle.”

“What?” She sounds incredulous. “That’s not even fair!”

Ellana thinks of her sisters, how she won’t see either of them again. How they are going to feel the heartbreak of both Fen’harel and Feynriel? The latter blanches a bit at the news, and she knows it is because he thinks of Merrill right now but... but...

He ignores her, for the most part. Looking around, making marks here and there, conjuring handkerchiefs when the one runs out of room. It takes more and more to keep him working. Eventually he stops, shakes his head as if to clear it, and sighs.

“I will return to my rooms. “

And so he went. Ellana was trying to figure out how to get the purple suit off of him. Maybe if she was really a witch, then she could make fire with her stick and get it like that. Well, if only he decides not to enchant his clothing. She couldn’t get him wet, that would only result in yelling and more magic. The other suit, the green one, where is it? Perhaps if she could do something to improve that one, he’d wear it instead. She was decent at embroidering... He’s in bed now, surely he isn’t wearing the suit now. She could grab it from him when he falls asleep.

There is a low groan from upstairs.

_Already?_

But Feynriel goes to tend to Fen’harel.  He comes back down looking for books, and brings them upstairs. The next trip is for lemon and honey tea, which Ellana makes for him since he is afraid to try to cook on Passion. He runs that upstairs. Pencil and paper makes another trip. Medicine to stop coughing, medicine to stop a runny nose, more books, more tea.

It was a few hours of this, and she watches how Feynriel grows ragged.

“He wants those little tea cakes for lunch,” he informs her, and her head shakes.

“He’s not dying,” says Passion, and they share an annoyed glance.

“We don’t have anything like that around the castle,” Ellana supplies. “He can have some of what we had for lunch. It would be better for him, anyway.”

So they gather ham and cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for Feynriel to take to Fen’harel. Up he goes, and Ellana stays, mending more clothes.

A few moments later, Feynriel clambers down the stars again, goes to one of the smaller cupboard rooms and grabs a cloak. “He wants me to go into Kirkwall and buy some things.”

“What about the Witch?” she asks, startled.

“I will be fine with my disguise. It has spells to make me undetectable.” He smiles wide for her, pockets a sack of coins and leaves through the red door.

It is after that things fall quiet again. Fen’harel does not bother attempting to get her attention. Probably because he knows she is not going to go galloping all over the castle for him. Back to mending the endless pile of Feynriel’s clothes, trying to figure out a way to get the plum suit from Fen’harel.

The Eluvian glows, green.

“I thought the one Feynriel left from is the red door?”

“I think so too,” Passion confirms, bowing his round head down into the hearth, shuffling around as if he’s looking for something, or perhaps just getting his balance again. She spies a lumpy thing inside, or precisely, smooth with two distinct humps. It is obscured when he settles over it again. “It’s flesh and blood, and alive, at that. It doesn’t seem dangerous.”

“Alright.” So she pulls herself up and puts her things aside to greet whoever is at the Eluvian door. The worst things come from the sides of Sundermount, and she is not eager. The touch of her hand releases the seal, and of all things to bound through –

Is a dog. A russet, fluffy thing, a Setter. It ‘woof’s at her, circles and circles, sits back on its haunches to pull its front feet up into the air, forcing her back several steps. It howls and groans and barks, stretching its arms and neck up until human features begin to emerge. Raven hair and blue-green eyes, pale skin and a strong jawline she feels she recognizes but can’t place emerges.

Ellana steps back further. Is this the same dog from the Circle?

“Velanna sent me to you –“ he chokes out, clearly struggling. “Don’t worry – she is strong,” he swallows, strains. “Love Velanna, told me to stay,” he growls, and Ellana steps back a few more steps in case its annoyance becomes directed at her. “Don’t tell Fen-!”

He is cut off mid-word, snaps back into a dog, this time a mabari. Ellana sighs. Poor Velanna! Tricked by Fen’harel to love him and then her only other lover turned into a dog. She isn’t quite sure why she would send the dog to her, really, because what could he do to help her now? When he is a dog does he keep his person – personality?

“Well, if Velanna told you to stay with me, I guess that’s what you should do,” because actually, Velanna is much smarter than she. Perhaps she knows something that Ellana doesn’t, and the dog has a solution to a problem of some sort, though she doesn’t know which one. It doesn’t matter much, though. She leads him over to Passion.

“He’s got a pretty nasty spell on him,” Passion says, peering from his hearth. The dog rears back a bit and growls.

“You think you could take it off?”

“I would need Solas to come here and help.”

Both she and the dog seem to not like that idea for the moment. “We’ll find some other way to break the spell,” she says and nods to try to reassure him but there really isn’t any reassurance to offer, exactly. And so she sits with the dog next to her, patting his head and speaking to him in low tones for a long time, just like she does when she’s sewing or when she’s talking to her walking stick, just telling him things, and willing him to be a man again.

 

... 

 

She’s dozing and the embers are low, Dog is laying, slumbering at her feet. A sneeze wakens her a bit, but gently. She wakes blearily as there is a hoarse coughing, it lasts a bit. Ellana thinks to bring him a glass of water or a bit more honey tea, maybe some ginger added to the mix to help loosen all that gunk in his chest. Oh how the great Wizard Fen’harel could be felled by a little cold.

Ellana is getting pretty good at ignoring him, at least.

Then it is a low, pitiful moan following his coughing and sneezing. It’s a wonder that they can hear it, she thinks, considering the thick brick walls and the distance his quarters are from the fire that they usually occupy, all the way near the entrance of the main throne room.

 _I am no indentured servant!_ She thinks vehemently.

They begin to run together, become louder, more constant. Sneezing, coughing, the little groans and the pained moans. Dog next to her whimpers and shoves his head closer to her feet, burrowing his face with his paws. Passion sighs, shuffling further down into the ash.

“ _Fenedhis!”_ She throws up her hands and gets up to climb the stairs to Fen’harel’s quarters. He is laying in his entirely-too-large-for-one-person post bed, a pile of handkerchiefs beginning to get high off one side. His food is untouched at his bedside. A quick glance over the room reveals a fireplace, a wardrobe and a desk, strewn with paper. The windows are stained glass, including the doors to a balcony, wolves adorning the top of it. In the far corner is a sink and a washbasin, a pile of towels all neatly folded. It is quite the climb to get up here, two flights of stairs from the main room.

“What is it?” she grouses.

His eyes are red-rimmed, nose sore and flared, even his upper lip is pink from blowing. It is an automatic thing to press a hand to his forehead for a moment, and he allows it without comment. There is fever there.

“Fen’harel,” she begins to scold but he –

“Solas,” scolds her right back.

“The great Wizard cannot cure a cold?” A towel from the sink, she soaks it with cold water for a few moments. Once wrung out to her satisfaction, she returns to his bedside to lay the towel over the expanse of his scalp.

“There _is no cure_ for a cold. Otherwise, I would have done so.”

Ellana can’t help herself. She grins. “Sit up.” She takes the soup while he shifts, and thrusts the bowl into his hands.

“I asked for –“

“Not good for you,” she interrupts, perching on the edge of his bed, within reach. “Don’t be a petulant child, Solas.”

And so he begins to eat. “Sileal,” a bit of a breath, clutching the bowl a bit harder than usual. “I must honor her, somehow.”

Ellana blanches, and swallows, suddenly uncomfortable and worried. “What happens to spirits when they...”

“They go back to the fade,” soft, hushed. “Perhaps one day the fragments of what’s left will create a new spirit, but she will not be _ma falon_. She won’t remember me.”

Her teeth clench much harder than they should, sending a small shock of pain through her jaw. “I should have –“

“Sathan, Ellana.” Her name rolls over his tongue like something sweet. “It’s not your fault.”

She thinks back to Wisdom’s words, that she would die soon, that it is her job now to get Solas out of his mess.

_Solas._

“I know. I –“ she feels at loss for words.

Thankfully he fills the silence instead. “There is not much time left.”

“For?”

“I am waiting now, for the end. When I will need to return to Mythal.” He dips the edge of his sandwich in his soup, then takes a pensive bite. “Get with child an elfroot, teach me to hear the corpses groaning, find what wind serves to advance an honest mind...” he pauses, another bite. “Til age snow white hairs on thee, and swear nowhere lives a woman true and fair.” His eyes return to her. “Those are the ones unfulfilled, though I am not sure I can count the last two. I have not hair to check if there are some greys.”

“Could you check?”

“Absolutely not,” he laughs. “Not that I wish to.”

“You caught a falling star, I take it.”

He hums with a small nod.

“The women –“

“I’m sure it’s not them. I will continue to try. It will not matter if I am recaptured by the Witch, however.” He sighs, dramatically. “I am walking the Din’anshiral.”

“Don’t say things like that,” she gently pushes his shoulder and he smirks, slightly. Sadly.

“It is true. If I were to find someone who has truly captured my heart, I would not be able to stay with her. I belong to this path.”

“Sileal said you were not well.” She takes the empty bowl from him and hands him the cup of tea.

He makes a sound at it, so she pushes it up and towards his face. With one last annoyed glance at her, he sips it and finds it not tea-like at all. The honey and ginger warmth soothes as it goes down.

“You can get rid of the Witch, I’m confident of that.”

“How very uncharacteristic of you,” his brows raise and that little smirk never leaves his mouth, becoming much more genuine. “Being kind and all.”

She makes a sound of feigned offense. Because this is how things work between them, right? Because nothing can be too soft, not that soft at all. “What else sort of thing should I say to a dying man?”

Something bumps into her feet, and she looks down to see Dog head-butting her ankles, though gentle. She stands. “Do you need anything else?” she asks.

“Nothing. I’m feeling better already.” He sets aside the cup and begins to get out of bed. The mabari pushes her towards the door.

“Hey, stop that,” she says to Dog, pushing him away. It’s half as tall as she is. “Go back downstairs!”

“Where did this dog come from?” Solas asks, though without anger.

“Don’t know,” she lies. “I like him.”

“I guess he stays, then.”

Looking up, her eyes flit from where he stands near his dresser to change, to the stained glass window. On the other side through the candy-colored glass, she can barely make out Numin and June, working on something. Numin picks up a tool and begins to do.... something with it. She can’t really see -

“You just cannot keep your nose out, can you?” she hears Solas’ voice and it tears her away from the scene beyond the window. Her wide eyes snap to him instead, and Dog finally pushes her to the stairs. She stumbles down several of them with a shriek. She’s caught by the arm, and she’s not quite so sure how Solas manages to move so fast when he means to. He laughs as he steadies her. “Perhaps you should keep your eyes on where you’re going, Var’hron.”

She huffs, stands straighter, and dusts herself off a bit, wiggling out of his grasp. “Ma serannas, Harellan.”

Solas glares for a long moment, and both of them laugh, together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Var’hron - long nose  
> Harellan - Traitor/trickster/rebel (in this case, Traitor, spoken by the Nightmare to Solas ingame)  
> Din'anshiral - path to death (from Trespasser)  
> Sathan - Please
> 
> Looks like we're a little more than halfway, at least according to my mark in my copy of the book! I hope you're enjoying reading as much as I enjoy writing. Thanks for your patience! With a combo of school and my bad health, I don't find a lot of time to write. 
> 
> I plan on writing a couple chapters of epilogue that exists beyond the scope of the book/movie and would love to take prompts! Head on over to my tumblr (lecherysweet is my sn there too) and drop me an ask with your idea? I think that would be incredibly fun! Or you can leave a comment here with your prompt! :D Thanks for reading my fic, loves! :D I never thought so many people would love it!


	9. The Captivating Spirit

Solas wanders in from the red Eluvian door, pulling a handful of handkerchiefs from the air. So many that by now it doesn’t faze her anymore. What bothers her more is the way he is dressed, simply as it is, in the middle of the heat. Well, he has a cold, so that should mean something, but sweating the summer away was only going to make his cold worse. Nevertheless, he’s never looked so normal, or to her, attrac-.

 _Normal_. She clamps down on the thought like a vice. She shouldn’t be impressed by light beige wool, forest green leggings, and brown foot wraps so commonly worn by the Dalish. She shouldn’t be impressed that he decided to stop his pompous charade and be sensible. Not by how trim he is with the belt slung around his waist, something he’d hidden with billowing shirts and jackets. Not even with his sharp profile and especially not by the long fingers of his hand as they twist and pull upon the air, deftly pulling a cloth from it.

_I am not impressed._

“Thank you, Feynriel,” he hands off his cloak to the boy. “I did decide to purchase the hat shop in Kirkwall’s market square. However I am not sure with what money we will pay for it.”

“The money that you get from finding Seamus would be more than enough.”

“The point of this move is to avoid that very task.” He practically tsks her. “It has a storefront. What would we sell there?”

“Not hats, for sure.”

He chuckles but does not ask again, instead resuming his marking of the castle.

What she is entirely and truly unimpressed by is this running away that he likes to do.

Which, in reality, means she can’t take her eyes off of him, following him as he lists about, Feynriel trailing behind him and marking pillars and particular bricks on the walls. So now she understands what they were for, and sort of feels bad about the whole washing things thing and he complains about it every once in a while but in his own indirect way where she has no idea until five minutes later she finds herself offended and cursing his ancestors.

“Ellana,” he stops as he drops another handful of his sodden rags into Passion’s fireplace. “Where would you like to live?”

“Why ask me?”

His head tilts just slightly as if he hasn’t thought of why. Instead he raises his eyebrows at her.

“Somewhere with flowers.”

He stands then, and they continue. She goes back to her sewing, idly passing the time speaking to Passion and telling him stories. He likes to lean at the edge of the hearth with a coolness that isn’t like a fury demon. There are times that she forgets that he’s a demon at all.

Once the slants of light on the floor has moved in the other direction, she is presented with a bundle of fabric. Ellana has to hide her jolt. “I ask that you clean this suit for me. I wish to look respectable for...” his eyes lift to stare at the wall, and stares so long and hard at it until she turns to look at the wall herself, then back to him. _Oh._

“Go before you make the rest of us sick,” she fusses. He drops it into her lap and turns, heading up to his quarters.

Promptly, she takes out her scissors and cuts it up into seven large pieces.

 

...

 

Scent precedes him. The smooth coolness of rain on grass and through trees, bouncing to the surface of an oasis. Refreshing, she has to admit, not like the headier musk’s that he typically wears. Salt water lapping at the sand, stinging yet at the same time cleansing. It is in direct contrast that when he opens the door he is dressed in black from head to toe.

She doesn’t know, not really, because he doesn’t say anything about anything. Not the suit pieces she snuck into his wardrobe as he slept or the repairs she had worked to do through the night on the green suit, whispering as little words as possible. Wouldn’t have wanted to wind another spell into the seams.

He says absolutely nothing as he goes and gets a cloak from the cupboard, swinging it over his shoulders and securing it with a pen. A shimmering gold blossom of Prophet’s Laurel.

_Wisdom._

Abruptly she stands, turning to attempt speaking with him, offering him comfort. There’s something about those storm blue eyes that stop her words in her throat, and he nods, just once. With the lift of his hood, he is slipping through the Eluvian before she can stop him.

“I hope he’s wearing the green suit.”

“It didn’t look to me that he was wearing a suit at all,” notes Passion.

“Yes, but, I know it was one of them. He asked for it, specifically.”

“He’s rather fickle.”

Her head shakes. “I wish he was. He’s stubborn as an ass.”

“Could you give me a log?”

She is standing still so she does not mind, and drags one over from the pile next to the fireplace. Passion reaches for it and pulls it towards him, sliding and hanging over the side. “Perhaps I should make lunch.”

“Can’t you eat something cold for once? Like bread and cheese?” Passion complains, but makes himself a puddle for her skillet anyway, before she even has to ask.

For a long moment she regards him, then, and says, “Maybe we could,” just as quiet as could be.

Passion looks up at her, surprised, and –

“She’s found us.”

The disembodied voice booms all around her, but it’s Solas’ voice just the same. Passion’s words were lost within it, and he won’t repeat them now because he’s gone. Well, not really. But his face is. White hot and burning, he is reaching up in the chimney, vibrating, magic pulsing.

Feynriel pulls Ellana back from the chair near the fireplace, as she is standing stunned and unmoving, to the other side of the room.

Eyes race from window to window, figures sweeping past. Candles and sconces flicker, torches entirely extinguished. A more powerful burst sends some smaller glass vials off of the table and onto the floor, other jars popping like a balloon, some just fizzling. There is as much noise inside the castle as outside.

They split up, she hurrying to put out a small fire that has erupted from an exploded jar, while Feynriel braves looking outside the windows on the balcony floor above the throne, trying to see what is going on. “They’re closer than I thought!”

She turns, then. “What?”

“They’re outside the house. The _house_ house.”

He means the one that they’re actually located in, the Antiva door near the port, but in town well enough. “They’ll destroy the town at this rate.”

“I wonder why they’re so close to the house, still!”

She’s wondering that, too, glancing around to see what she can do. But they can’t leave Passion, can they? Won’t it be dangerous? Would it be more dangerous if they stayed? “Feynriel!”

Down the stairs as fast as he can manage, she grabs his wrist and drags him outside the Antivan door. “Where are they? Where are they?” she asks them both and they twist and turn to look for them.

Behind her there seems to be a blur, a few of them, things moving about. Cats to be exact, large and feral looking, one white and the other black. The black one skids to a stop in front of them. Ellana realizes that they aren’t large, they’re _enormous_ , as tall on all fours as she is on her feet. Its nails gauge marks into the stone street, growling and crouching as if in warning, then bursting out to streak away. The white blur goes after it.

“What’s going on?” Someone walks up to them asking, and her head shakes, people pouring out of their businesses as the threat seems to move on.

“Why are they fighting?”

“How can they move so fast?

“Cats? What are cats that big doing HERE?”

“Where are they going?”

“Are we safe?”

“That’s not –“ she looks for them again. “It’s the Witch of the Wilds and Fen’harel.”

This isn’t the answer they expect, she realizes quickly, as the crowd goes quiet. Some of them retreat into their homes, which is good she thinks, and the rest of them who stay out here with them are plain stupid from her estimation. Oh well.

“It looks like they’re going towards the docks,” says the butcher, who has come outside with cleaver in tow.

“Let’s hurry,” she turns and they go as fast as they can.

By time they reach the docks, they are nowhere to be found. Ellana is annoyed that she has let the townspeople distract her from keeping track of Solas and Mythal. Of course. Perhaps they went further out to sea. How could they? There are no boats about.

A shadow passes over them. Most everyone looks up.

“Do you think she ate him? I don’t see him anywhere,” Feynriel’s voice somewhere behind her asks, sounding as nervous as she feels.

The question, however, sticks. Because, really, there is a dragon above them right now and well... it’s as red as her dress and its underbelly is as white as her hair and if its horns aren’t practically the same hairstyle as some hat she’s seen her wear than she’s delirious and obviously needs to be taken to a healer.

Twisting, turning, the shoulder of the dragon pivots and dives – fast. Ellana, the eldest, is the first to react. “Get off the pier!”

Her warning echoes through the crowd they have somehow accumulated, and about twenty people shuffle away from the end of the pier and to solid land. There is the wharf where the boats are parked against to pick up and drop off passengers in the dock, and then a walkway of stone, climbing up into a wall some ways back. A second stone wall is a couple meters behind that, making sure the water level cannot flood the town beyond.

They are not exactly off the pier when it explodes in a shatter of wood and nails and water, leaving most of them drenched. A high pitched wail tears through the air as the dragon hits the water, some of it dark as it stains the wood near the wharf.

A black wolf with six red eyes catches itself on a remaining post of the pier, nearly tearing that down with its weight. It is much bigger than the cat, maybe three, four times its size. The size of a small house, really. It hops down, rushing forward as the dragon attempts to drag itself out of the water.

Lunging, it grabs hold of the side of its face and yanks, winds, bracing itself to pull. The dragon screeches again, batting away with a short arm. It is long enough to reach him, though, and it is but a shaking motion to remove him, he is thrown against the stone.

They separate to shake themselves off, the dragon surging forward and grabbing blindly for a moment while Ellana pulls people behind the second wall. Churning and grey, the sea roils about, crashing over the dragon’s head as it wrenches itself up and out of the water using the last remaining pier support. Rain suddenly bursts from the sky as if personally affronted. Thunder claps, clouds thick and gloomy.

The tide comes in with a shuddering slap, pressing the black wolf to the wharf wall.

“Come on! Get up!” Ellana screams as loud as she can over the second wall.

“Get up!” The entire crowd rallies, because really, who wants the Witch of the Wilds to win?

Peeling himself from the wall and bracing himself for another onslaught of water, he pushes against the waves. When he stands firm, the dragon stops and propels into the sky once more.

Using the posts and buoys, he follows her out.

The dragon dives again, making everyone duck behind the wall and not able to see what happens to the wolf. It emerges at least a mile more out, with the wolf clutching at its back.

Ellana’s hands clench as if she’s the one holding on for dear life on the back of the dragon. The wolf gets to his feet, however, and the entire group sighs, cheers. There is screaming from the dragon when the wolf digs viciously into her back, falling back into the water.

A blink of light, the dip of the water and the sway of a red buoy, so out of place in this grey water, practically bounces when Solas’ feet lands upon it. His cape blows and twists around him. He stands, waiting.

He steals her breath away. Or perhaps Ellana hasn’t had her breath in a long while now. That must be it, because really, how can she even breathe with all this playing out right in front of her?

Everyone groans when the Witch emerges from the water, and with her, corpses. A myriad of them, an army of undead moaning and groaning and looming towards Solas. They slog through the water, being turned over and under by the current, struggling to surface all the way.

Crouching on the buoy, Solas reaches out and pulls _something_ and it’s like it is restrained or he is struggling because it goes slowly, but eventually it snatches back and through. The water lurches towards him but curls into a massive tidal wave, half of the corpses swept up into the froth. Fingers unravel, letting the water crash over the skeletons with thousands of pounds of weight, crushing them down into their watery graves.

It also washes some of the corpses on to the land for she, Feynriel, and the butcher to attempt to slay. Some of the others come to help, with bats and frying pans, until several of the Antivan Crows appear to finish the rest of them off. They crouch behind the stone wall, also, interested in the battle.

The water settles, bones gone except for the ones washed up onto the wharf, Solas stands still on his buoy, undeterred. Mythal crouches on a _cloud_. Is that even possible? Shouldn’t she fall through? She does seep through the foggy moisture, however, and stands directly on the water.

What is this, a show of strength? Ellana has a feeling they have not even fought each other.

Solas steps forward, onto the water, and walks. The water churns around his feet, cloak whipping in the stormy wind. Ellana has to wipe her face with her hands, her sleeves, to get the water from her eyes, and many of their company has gone home to escape the rain.

At the same time, Mythal and Solas reach, weapons made of stardust and moonshine appearing in their hands. He chooses a bladed staff, while she selects dual swords. Interesting, really, she would have expected her to choose something more... “sophisticated”.

_Flash! Crack!_

When their weapons meet, a lightning strikes down the middle of the sky, turning the slate grey in to tones of purple and gold. The thunder accompanying it is immediate, loud enough to stun Ellana and Feynriel to cover their ears and the humans to cower, several others running home. Her eyes, though, do not stop watching as they twist and turn about each other, swapping places, ducking, spinning, jumping, pressing, bowing. She realizes after a second snap of lightning it is _Solas_ who is calling it upon them, and she watches as Mythal screams and shudders and draws back.

Solas steps backwards, his staff in front of him to block a counterattack. Mythal shrinks, transforming into a large bird and flying away.

The storm starts to die at last, and he crosses the expanse of water to join them. Taking his cloak, he wraps it over Ellana’s shoulders, a hand pressed between her shoulder blades. Feynriel trails behind them as he pushes them quickly towards the castle entrance.

“We must move Tarasyl’an Tel’as immediately,” he tells him, clipping his words.

“I had no idea it had a proper name,” Ellana wonders aloud.

When they get inside, Passion has been burned down but to embers. He listlessly reaches an especially small hand towards the firewood. Feynriel quickly goes and fetches it for him, pushing two into the hearth.

Solas is busy pushing around tables to the walls and then drawing a large circle on the floor with many symbols, lines, and writing. Some of it she recognizes, like “fire” and “swift”. When he is done, he moves her chair and the table beside it away from the fireplace also.

“Come now, Passion,” he instructs, but the little demon trembles and blazes white.

“I can’t, I’ll die.”

“That’s not true.”

“I’ll burn the entire place down.”

“You won’t, I have you, Passion. We must hurry.”

Sighing, still trembling, Passion slides out of the fireplace and towards the summoning circle. He is small and delicate now, fitting in the palm of their hands. Ellana grabs the shovel from the corner and shoves it into Solas’ hands.

Scooping up Passion, he brings him into the center of the circle, and says something in Elvhen. Then he turns slowly in a full circle, and places Passion back into the fireplace.

“It is done,” announcing like a great achievement.

“I’m so tired. I need to rest.”

“You’ve earned it, falon.”

 

...

 

Blinking blearily, Ellana’s eyes open to look into another pair. She startles, and he chuckles, that still cold-ridden rasp deep and warm. Instantly it makes her wonder what is going on, since she has done nothing that would warrant his sudden happiness.

She does not like that he sees her in her nightclothes when she wakes. It is but a pale blue shift and fuzzy slippers. Fortunately, the fabric is thick enough that nothing is seen through it, since she is instantly embarrassed of this old body. Though, it is not really fair that he is still in his entirely black ensemble, and she still has no idea which suit he is wearing.

 _Embarrassed for what? Something that’s his fault?_ She snaps at herself, biting hard.

“I want to show you –“

“Now?”

“It is sunrise,” he smiles as if that is all he really needs to say.

Grabbing her shawl, she wraps it about her shoulders before he grabs her wrist and pulls her downstairs and through the celadon-blue glowing door. His hand loosens when the urgency is gone and they emerge through the cave and into an alcove.

As sunlight begins to crest over the top, preceded by orange and pinks of cotton candy, light skips and filters along the falling water, glows along the edges of blue stone and refracts into a rainbow over the small pool nestled at the base. Statues of stags hover gracefully protective and stoic, humming with luminous vibration. Beneath their feet, between her toes blades of dew-laden grass will stain but feeling the soil under her skin again makes her feel _so_ young.

Ellana doesn’t notice herself smile or her cheeks flush or the clench of intertwined fingers. He leads her along as she gasps and giggles more girlishly than in all her years, with a hand pressed to her lips. At sunrise brown eyes don’t look so dull, amber-flecked at the edges. She isn’t sure why, or is even concerned with it, when he lets her step ahead and tug him along, nor does his smile slip away.

“Can you feel it?” He asks as he leans down to her. “The veil is thin here.”

Humming, she nods, eyes flickering over the blurred edges of the blades of grass.

“Wait,” a request, again, as his fingers curl over her shoulders and turn her towards the pond again, the sun climbing slowly in the sky. As it peaks over the edge of the wall, it lights the entire glade.

And then the entire glade blooms.

White, pink, yellow, lavender buds open and sway with a small breeze and the gasp of her breath. He lets her slip away from him then, and folds his hands behind his back as she bends down to gather the flowers into her hands, delicately as to not break them from the stems, and buries her nose in their scent.

“Solas, what a beautiful place! Where are we?”

He wavers a bit, looking down at his feet where they have flowers tucked between his toes. “Crestwood,” he finally answers. “I hope you will enjoy it here.”

“You know I will. Perhaps, we can have a flower shop.”

“Ah,” his head lifts and he grins. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me.”

 

...

 

The shop has a courtyard and is attached to the house where Ellana used to live. The inside stretched and wiggled and somehow rearranged itself where it all melds together. The living room was still the main hall of Tarasyl’an Tel’as, but the shop portion and the courtyard remains intact.

And there is a new bedroom, entirely furnished, upstairs with the others.

Solas didn’t get to leave in order to honor Wisdom after all, and even after a few days he hadn’t stopped wearing all black. She was sure he was wearing the purple suit, because _she isn’t this person and he would never_ – she clips the thought short. He could magically conjure cloth to blow his nose, then he could magically restore his plum suit. Right?

Right.

Nevertheless, she began gardening in the courtyard, not allowing Solas to use it for junk or experiments for magic spells. Travelling into the Emerald Graves from the new door in Halamshiral, she was able to find all sorts of rare herbs, some of them just as beautiful as beneficial. She wondered if she could grow them herself, and it had become a task.

So when the evening came and she found that her entire garden had bloomed in under three days and a nest of fireflies had been charmed by her gardening, she thought she was given the perfect thing to help.

Solas wakes in the middle of the night, as he had been the last few nights with stress and sickness, he finds a Prophet’s Laurel glowing beside his bed. Little balls of light, like fireflies, sit upon its leaves, setting golden blossoms shining even in the deep darkness.

But then... he chuckles and shakes his head at the thought of her meddling, sneaking inside his chambers to bring him this gift. “I wonder if she knows...” They are not fireflies at all.

The pad of his thumb strokes the velvet of an amber petal, letting the warmth of wisdom’s fragmented spirit seep deep into his bones.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> falon - friend  
> Tarasyl’an Tel’as - Skyhold's elvhen name


	10. The Champion's Dissent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos. So many of them. Ugh, sorry peeps. I got you.

Solas isn’t home.

 _It’s whatever_ , Ellana reminds herself as they pick flowers in Crestwood. It’s not like she should have expected Solas to come with them to pick flowers for the shop. When it was just Feynriel, it was _he_ who took care of the potions shop, not Solas. She shouldn’t be surprised that even though his name is on the place, she shouldn’t have expected him to actually help out.

She tucks another bundle of white lilies into their barrel.

What in the world does he see in Andruil anyway? It wasn’t like the woman tried to make things difficult for him when they were there. Perhaps the rules are more specific than that – she has to fall _in love_ and not _in bed_ with him.

“I would be just fine never seeing her again,” she murmurs to her walking stick, poking the dew-laden ground to make sure it was sturdy around the pond.

“What was that?” Feynriel’s hovering tin pot follows him over to her.

“Ah, just trying to get that Dawn Lotus, right there,” she points with the stick, and he wades into the water to get it.

Dog rolls in the flowers in one corner, scooting himself to press as many of them down as he can. Ellana tsks him. “I’m mad at him too but we need these flowers to make a living,” she scolds, but leaves him to it, because what is the use of trying to get a stubborn man or a stubborn dog do anything you want them to do?

Not much, apparently, because as soon as she goes back to gathering roses from the bushes along the west wall, he begins trampling flowers again.

They gather a wide selection and carry them back inside. In the garden she clips only one sprig of Prophet’s Laurel and Fendelaris for drying into potions. Making note of a new bud growing next to the Embrium, she decides to check it later when she has time after dinner.

The shop opens after they get all of the flowers set up, and Feynriel goes out into Kirkwall’s market square to visit Merrill at the bakery. The sun is hot today, especially though the windows, and no amount of water, talking, or nutrients are keeping the flowers from wilting. Ellana goes about setting the flowers off of the windowsill and out of the direct sunlight.

Screaming. She hears it but she isn’t sure where it’s coming from. Her eyes look around cautiously through the window, sure nothing is wrong at all, nothing could _actually_ be wrong but-

A flash of red catches her attention, flashing because of rusted red armor and bloody, shining footsteps, the white wet shine of bone. Her hands clamp over her own mouth before she can scream and she ducks below the sill.

“We’re not here, you don’t know us, we’re not here, you’re wrong, go away, you’re wrong.”

She could go and talk to Passion, tell him to tell Solas to get back, to do _something_ , but she’s frozen with fear. The shrieking is getting closer and closer, the wet click of metal on stone, slightly buffered by blood, determined quick steps that echo. Children crying.

“We’re not here. You don’t know us. You’re wrong. Go away go away go away.”

Peaking up above the edge of the sill, it’s stopped in front of the flower shop, staring straight at the door. Her whispering gets more frantic, and she can’t contain it anymore, or stop it, really. “Go away, hurry! As fast and as far as you can! We’re not here! We’re nowhere near here!”

It moves on, but Ellana doesn’t move until the screaming diminishes also.

She goes to sit with Passion at the fire, and he’s rather cool despite the heat of the day. She’d rather do this, than to sit in there alone with the prospect of the darkspawn coming after her again.

“When are you going to break the curse?” he complains. He does more and more of this each day, now, as he is bored sitting here alone during the day while they are in the shop.

“Any day now,” she promises again, perhaps the third time this week, and quickly changes the subject.

The reality of the situation is this: Ellana understands now, what the curse is and what it is she needs to do to break it. This breaking, though, is sure to kill them both, and if not both, at least Passion. Solas is constantly working on ways to keep the Witch at bay, Flemeth, Mythal, whatever her name _actually_ is (did she even realize that she had given her two?), and there were still two things that needed to come true so...

Ellana would rather avoid hurting them if she can, especially if she can save both of them. Solas isn’t the one who truly deserves saving after all, he earned all this, every single thing. Passion, though...

“You were a shooting star, huh, Passion?”

“Of course.” He laughs a bit, leaning his domed head on his log, golden eyes barely slits as he smolders sleepily at her. “Now that you’ve figured it out...”

“But why?”

“I didn’t want to die,” the motion he makes is so human, and yet so liquid, a shrug she feels. “And Solas felt sympathy for me. I proposed a contract right away, but... neither of us knew what it really meant at the time.”

Ellana sighs, hanging a bundle of tied flowers over the mantle. She does this with two more before she settles down in her chair again. With a mortar and pestle, she begins to pound away at a small pile of fendelaris. “How does someone start off as a star and become a demon?”

“Ah,” he laughs again. “That’s something you humans don’t know much about, still? I guess it won’t hurt to tell you our secret then.”

“Come on, then,” she stifles a smile, sighs with fake annoyance.

“Don’t jump, now, Ellana.”

She laughs.

Passion grins, lazily. “So, there’s the veil right? On the other side of the veil is where spirits live. Some of us burn bright and hot for whatever reason, and the heat of it is more real than we are. So it becomes us. It takes a long time to burn off all that heat.”

“What’s the heat from?”

“Anger, most likely. There was...” he pauses. “I shouldn’t tell you stuff like this about Solas. He’d kill me.”

It’s her turn to shrug. “Perhaps it will help me figure out how to break the curse. Then it won’t matter.”

He hums. “Well. Solas had a friend. He loved her, I’m not so sure romantically or not but, I know she was named for someone else. That guy got jealous of their friendship and killed her.”

“ _Her?”_

“Yeah, Jealous Guy killed his friend. For a long time he was angry. Angrier than, uh, well. Just really angry. Furious.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I burned through, because his anger was so... _real_.”

“How does that even work? Our feelings don’t become real in the fade, do they?”

“Well, sure they do. That’s how spirits come about, after all.”

“Did he know that?”

“No, no. Sort of gullible when it comes to spirits sometimes. He’s sort of more trusting of a spirit than he is of a person, really. I think that’s why when I fell on this side of the veil, all he really wanted to do was protect me.”

“That’s...” but she can’t find a word for it, so she abandons the thought. Her eyes look towards the Eluvian, where there is a bit of a black haze around the edge. He’s been in Arlathan for a few hours now. “What about other kinds of spirits?”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. Like Wisdom.”

“There’s so few people who are wise in the world that those guys are pretty rare. They don’t usually come over here either, they know better than to feel too much about any one thing.”

That makes her a bit sadder too, so she stops asking questions and wanders back into the flower shop, taking more care of the flowers. She starts mixing up more of the nutrition additive for their water to help them stay alive longer as she waits for customers to come inside. She does it all with the practice of someone who has done something all her life that she doesn’t enjoy but must do and do well anyway.

The feeling stops her, staring at an orchid and twirling it between her fingers. She isn’t happy, even though she should be. She should be ecstatic. She spends her evenings experimenting and talking to her plants in the garden, picking flowers in the mornings, and selling them in the shop during the day. Feynriel is great company even if Solas isn’t around much to be of it, they were never that fond of each other anyway despite the niceties and pleasantries they often exchange. It’s the beast of living under the same roof, like siblings. She’s sure it’s not much to him anyway, having lived hundreds of years. Her few left were going to to be a blip in the rest of his lifetime. Having a live-in maid would be nothing but convenience for him.

She sighs.

She _should_ be happy.

Dog trots into the shop and follows her around for a while, when she stops in different places to measure this or that, it lays its head on her feet and gazes up at her with blue-green eyes. She has to shake it loose each time she goes. “What is it, you?” she smiles, just a bit.

It rears back, straining like, well, the only thing that comes to mind is constipation but that may be her and no one else. She sort of feels sorry for it. “Come on, you can do it if you want,” she tells the dog, and the dog seems to try harder, revealing dark hair and pale skin again.

“Velanna sent – as guard – because Wizard is evil – safe with Wynne –“ his face screws up good as he wavers, tries to keep hold of his form. “We met – was with Witch –“

And back into a dog he snaps, a retriever this time, golden hair long in its eyes. Reaching out, she pats his head for his efforts. “The Witch? The first night she came into the shop? Does this not give you a sense of deja vu, then?” she tries to laugh, but it comes out a croak, basically. “I’m sorry, friend. Perhaps you should go take a rest. We’ll do something about you soon.”

How can she sit and mope while she’s ignored the Dog’s plight?

Is it because of watching Feynriel leave to see Merrill so often? She truly is happy for the two of them. Feynriel is a sweet boy and deserves happiness, and she is always interested in his stories when he gets home and hearing how she’s doing. Perhaps it’s because he’s seeing her sister, when she is not able to. Well, she _could_ but she does not want them to see her like this, nothing like the sister they were left with before. He often tells her Merrill is sad that she never sees her sisters. Is it the same with Velanna? The middle sister is much more pragmatic than that, and would write her, would be content to receive letters. No, it’s not because of her sisters, she’s the only one preventing herself from seeing her sisters.

Is it because she’s alone in the shop?  No, she enjoys being in the shop alone, more than anything else. She’s found that the women in the town peer inside to make sure Solas isn’t there before entering to buy, since they often walk in asking for three button daises to press for a card and they walk out with an armful of lavender. Many women came in just to see him at first, it used to be their busiest time. He still hadn’t stopped wearing all black, however, and she bet it was that damned suit. It made her feel dishonest about the business when it is a charmed suit drumming up all their business.

After tending to the flowers and finding that no one intends to enter today, she locks the door and goes to take up her mortar and pestle in front of the fire again. The quiet magical pop of the Eluvian is heard. Both of them turn to see, fully expecting it to be Solas since it’s no reason for Feynriel to be back so soon.

“Ugh, it’s you,” Andruil scoffs, hands on her hips, in the most disgusted voice she can muster. Ellana stands and puts her mortar and pestle aside, alarmed and unhappy with this new arrival. “I’m looking for Fen’harel.”

“He’s out.”

“Then go get him.”

Ellana’s brows raise. This girl is really trying her nerves today. She looks out into the flower shop, making sure there isn’t anything to be done. “I really cannot.”

“Where’s the little boy, then?”

“Not here.”

“So, only _you_ are here?” Her arms cross over her chest. She’s like fire, she thinks, unpleasantly hot even to be around. Golden eyes bore into her, steady and knowing her own power.

“Yes.”

A bit of a hum, then, and the rolling of her shoulders. Then she starts walking around. The shop is first. She notices it’s an entirely different place outside and it seems to startle her for a moment. “What’s this place called?”

“It’s Kirkwall.”

“Not a very nice name, is it?” she laughs, but it’s sort of rough and unused, like she’s trying really hard. Is this an act or was the “other” Andruil an act and why was it being used now? “It’s quite...”

“It’s quaint.”

“You sell...”

“Flowers.”

Her manicured eyebrows raise at her. “ ** _The_ **_Fen’harel_ has a flower shop?” Thankfully, though, Ellana doesn’t need to answer. “I guess he always has liked flowers.”

“How long have you known him?” Ellana tries to usher Andruil back towards the open door and the Eluvian, blocking her from a bin of azaleas. Andruil snatches up a rose and winds it into her hair, then ambles back the way Ellana is allowing in a slow, meandering way.

“Hm, a few thousand years, perhaps?” Andruil drops an arm over her head, letting it stretch back and hang. A couple of cracks of her spine has Ellana cringing. She knew Solas was old but, _I’ll process that later_. “What’s up there?”

“His room.”

“That door?”

“Library.”

“He would keep a room just for books.” She rolls her eyes. “There?”

“Kitchen, baths.”

“That?”

“Garden, courtyard.”

“Got anything interesting?”

“Not if you take my herbs as interesting.”

Andruil raises her brows at her, and Ellana shrugs. “If they’re yours then I take they’re positively normal.”

“Suit yourself.”

The woman gives her a feral grin. “I want something to think of Fen’harel by,” she announces, slamming her demand on the table with her hand. “How about this?” She fingers a soft wolf pelt sitting over one of the chairs, _her_ chair, though the pelt she hadn’t noticed there before.

“No,” Ellana snaps, her patience worn.

“You have him here, don’t you understand? It isn’t fair. If he left me with a gift then I wouldn’t have to bother you.”

“I will pass the message along then, I’m sure he will be more than amenable.”

“ _No!”_ Andruil yells at her, and realizes it, reeling back on her heels and letting go of the pelt. Her voice lowers to its normal volume, and she laughs. “That’s not necessary. I will just.” Her sentence ends abruptly, when she notices Passion.

Something happens, she knows, but she doesn’t really care and she’s too annoyed to be nosy. Andruil’s face settles into a frown, and Passion glows a little brighter than before, eyes narrowed and mouth pressed into a line. It must be a sign, because Solas only allows people to stay who are welcomed by Passion, and it’s obvious Passion doesn’t want her to be there.

“Don’t tell him I’ve been here,” it’s a command if Ellana has ever heard one, and Andruil turns on her heel and lets herself out the way she came.

“That goes for you, too!” Ellana swings on Passion when she’s gone, and then shuts down the shop completely to go out into the courtyard and tend to the garden instead.

She feels like she has acted incredibly unkind. It does nothing for her mood.

Remembering the embrium, she carefully digs up the tight root ball. “Sort of looks like a baby,” laughs Feynriel over her shoulder. She doesn’t know when he got there and the sound of his voice makes her jerk back from it in quick, barely tamped down anger.

A hand reaches over her and plucks the root ball out of her hands, and she follows those long fingers up and out of her field of vision. Did they both get back at the same time? Where had he been? _How dare he?_

“Ah,” the sound of his voice stops her in her tracks, scares her, cold and hard. “Elfroot. You’ve outdone yourself with your experiments, Ellana. Well done.” It’s entirely sarcastic, she’s sure, root ball plunking as it hits the dirt, his footsteps retreating back inside.

She presses her hands over her face for a moment, smearing it entirely in dirt, takes a deep breath, and shakes her head, pushing back the surging sting behind her eyes.

“Well done indeed. I suppose that’s all I’m good for, being the eldest.”

.

.

.

When Solas returns the next afternoon from wherever he goes when he goes out, he seems pleasant enough that she assumes he’s forgotten entirely about the elfroot root, smiles when he comes through the Eluvian.

Inexplicably, this makes her completely, entirely angry.

“What suit are you wearing?” she turns to ask him, hands on her hips and the pestle in her hand, mortar placed on the floor.

“I do-“

“I don’t _care_ if you don’t know. _Find out._ ”

“Is it really that important to you, Ellana?”

“ _Yes_.”

He frowns at her, and then at his sleeve, nonetheless, as if he actually doesn't know. He places his hand over the other’s wrist and pulls up, instead of the cloth going with it, the color scrunching up his arm, revealing green and gold.

This makes her entirely angrier than she had been. She had to have been, at one point, charmed by the purple suit.

“Lethallan,” he leans forward, letting go of the inky darkness at his shoulder and it snapping back to his wrist, voice full of concern. “What’s wrong, Ellana?”

Dog, however, wanders in from wherever it was.

“Another dog?” He sounds slightly relieved, and she knows he doesn’t actually like dogs and dogs don’t really like him much either.

“That’s the _same_ dog,” she snaps at him, and watches as he visibly leans back on his heels. He stares at it for a moment, and his eyes widen before narrowing.

“That is... not something I would have expected of you, Ellana,” his says, the happy warmth gone from his accent.

“It’s not my fault that you didn’t notice!”

He looks up at her then, and she knows she’s actually made him angry instead of the bits of displeased here or there. Stormy blue eyes hard and glass-like with the furrow of his brow. She stands her ground, ready for a fight, his anger only feeding into her own. Instead of confronting her further, however, “Feynriel!”

Lunging forward fast as lightning, or perhaps, _as_ lightning, he scoops up Dog. Feynriel is pounding down the stairs quickly in the meantime. “Yeah?”

“Did you know this dog is a man under a spell?”

“Is it, really?” His eyes squint at it, trying to look hard enough to see.

“Ah,” he nods, as if confirming something. Perhaps Feynriel’s innocence. “I know someone who is not guilt free, however,” he brings the squirming animal over to Passion, who is keeping as quiet as embers.

“I had no idea,” he begins before being pinned by Solas’ glare. “Ok, but, you didn’t ask.”

“Should I have needed to? From you?” With the pull of his head, Solas motions over Feynriel. “Hold him up. This is one of Mythal’s spells, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, seems like it. There’s a bunch of ‘em.”

“Let us remove the dog portion first, at least.”

They hold the struggling dog up, sitting like a person in front of Passion. Solas puts a hand out, the left one, and begins drawing little symbols in the air. Ellana peers from the door to the rotunda. She watches as the edges of the dog go fuzzy, then turn into a person, then go into a dog again, and then a person, then fuzzy, and finally, holds as a human. Blue-green eyes and a blue-green suit and black, short wavy hair.

She had only seen him for a moment before, but he’s familiar now. She feels like she should know him from somewhere else, though, and cannot pinpoint where that is.

“Now, there,” Solas stands with the black haired young man and takes him to sit at the table next to Ellana’s chair. “What’s your name?”

“Ah, I don’t remember.”

“He last answered to Maric,” Passion provides.

Solas hums, sitting back with one foot on the other knee. “Take your time. Tell us anything you remember.”

“I... my blood was drained. I was strung up to a machine and blood-letted. And she took off my head. I remember looking at myself from a shelf.”

“But you’d be dead!” Feynriel protests with a shiver.

Solas shakes his head at Feynriel. “It is simply not a school of magic I am willing to teach. A spirit and a soul are two separate things, da’len. A necromancer or a blood mage can very easily accomplish that very task,” gaze going back to Maric. “I do not think you are all here, then.”

“This body is made of several different ones,” Passion confirms, working hard to impress Solas again.

Maric swallows. “You’re scaring him, Passion,” Solas informs him. Passion ducks into his logs again.

Ellana however, sneaks out through the green Eluvian as they are paying too much attention to Maric, angry and stomping. It was a marvel how fast the Eluvian was able to travel, making it across Thedas in less than a week. It was how she started growing the Prophet’s Laurel that brought Solas’ smiles’ back, after first few days Wisdom was murdered.

She sighs, stamps down the blades of grass until they are pulping and staining her feet.

Halamshiral is dilapidated, really, or the lands around it is. While the building is still shining and golden, blue, and white, the moss and algae is growing all over it and the white is stained to show its age. There are parts of the stone that’s cracked or chipped or even walls with holes. She knows it’s not kept up and it hasn’t been fixed since they have moved into it, a shame, even though she knows they haven’t had time and being angry about it is really a mean thing she’s angry about it anyway. Because Halamshiral belongs to the Dalish really, anyway, and even though Solas doesn’t consider himself Dalish she still considers HERSELF Dalish, she has the marks to show it and he should respect _her_ and he doesn’t respect her enough.

“He doesn’t _respect_ me enough.”

“Yes, he does seem pretty mean,” comes a voice behind her, and she about jumps out of her skin.

“Go back inside, Maric,” she snaps, “You need him to fix you.”

“I don’t need much fixing.”

“You remember more than you told them?”

“Well, yes.”

She groans. “Then what were you doing with the witch in the first place?”

“She was looking for Fen’harel. I don’t remember what I had done before that time, something in my memory had tipped her off to Velanna and her hat shop. She came looking for Velanna thinking _you_ were she. I didn’t know she had a sister.”

“And after that?”

“She dropped me off at the edge of the city, just threw me out of her carriage saying, you’d better run.”

Ellana sighs this time, kicking and squishing a rare flower. It made her feel better to kill something for once.

“When I got far away from her, I found Velanna and stayed with her. Velanna and Wynne were very kind to me, worked to break the spell on me for a while. Then Fen’harel showed up and began asking Velanna of an Ellana that sort of looked like her. Velanna told him that you were sisters, accidently. She began to pretend she was sweet on him to get more information out of him. She found out that you were spelled to be an old woman –“

“He’s known this entire time I’ve been under a spell and he hasn’t done anything about it?” she screeches, completely thrown for a loop.

“-That was the only time I’ve seen her cry, then she sent me here to guard you until she called me back with a fix for the spell.”

Flabbergasted, Ellana stands slack jaw. “Velanna... _cried?”_

“Just once, for about ten seconds.”

Her eyes close and she (counts, breathes, counts, breathes) tries to calm herself, suddenly more irate than ever before if that could be possible. More than she can ever remember. Turning, she begins her trek again. She can walk all the way back, she can, she can use spells, she can use magic, she can escape whatever or who cares about Solas and all his stupid problems that he involves himself with? Who cares? She has sisters that she hasn’t seen because of him. She has people who care about her.

_He doesn’t care about her._

She grits her teeth and hikes her skirts and walks faster.

_He had been wearing the green suit all along. The way that I feel... is mine?_

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

 “I can’t! I promised Velanna!”

“Oh, to the void with you!”

“You need me!”

“I do _not!”_

But something is wrong, she knows it. It has been for a long time. Something’s been wrong and she hasn’t been happy. She knows the answer and she doesn’t know how to do it, to make it happen. A failure, the bottom of the barrel, the last pick, the end of the line, the butt of the joke. There is nothing about her that makes things good or turn out well, and Sileal, Wisdom of all people had put her faith in her and there is absolutely no way she is going to be able to pull this off.

Absolutely, no way.

Besides, she had gone in under false pretenses anyway.

Except.

Ellana screams.

“What is it?!” Maric screams over her.

“Of course she knows! Sileal knows everything! She knew everything the entire time! Solas knew she would know but why in the world did he take me there in the first place? There’s nothing that I can do!”

_I will not be lured by my very own spell! It was mine, wasn’t it? That’s how it works, doesn’t it?_

“Knows what?”

“That Solas doesn’t like me!” she yells, throwing up her hands and turning around to face Maric.

Behind him is the very last thing she ever, ever needs right now. Ever.

 

 

_Oh, come on._

 


	11. The Capricious Truth

Ellana pulls Maric down behind a bush.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hush!?” she hisses, glancing around.

“What’s happenin-“

“Shut _up!_ Go away go away go away!” Her frantic whispers come out in a rush. “Go away fast. Go away faster. Twice as fast, three times as fast, ten times as fast!”

The darkspawn seems to teeter and pivot, hand hovering at a weapon on its belt and the sun glistening off wet white bone and it looks around before turning and going the way it came. Its stride becomes larger, then it begins to run, and then leap, before it’s out of sight.

Ellana can’t very well leave now when the darkspawn is on the road. There’s always something to mess everything up. “Let’s hurry back inside before that thing hurts one of us, Maric.”

“Yeah.”

When they get through the door, Passion is ducking back into the hearth and Solas and Feynriel is dismantling some sort of spell. She looks at the guilty looking pair for a moment before she realizes –

“Eavesdroppers!” She screams and points and knobby fingers. “H-how long did you know that I, I – that I” she stammers.

“Was under a spell?” Solas provides.

“I told him,” Feynriel nervously laughs. “My Velanna –“

“So did I,” says Passion.

“So did the other Velanna,” shrugs Solas. “ _Everyone_ told me. Not that I needed to be told. I would be a shame of a Wizard if I could not see such a thing for myself. I attempted to dispel the enchantment from you several times, Ellana, I even took you to Sileal to see if she would be able to do something about it. I think you like to be in disguise.”

“I _-what!”_

One corner of his mouth curls upwards. “Ellana, would your name also happen to be Velanna?”

She balks at him.

Leaning forward, he catches his chin in the palm of his hand. “You are casting the spell on yourself.”

“ _You’re lying!”_

“Why would I do such a thing?” he frowns at her so seriously that she can’t do anything other than believe him.

“You-“ but she stops short, and she doesn’t have an answer to his question. Instead she goes and slumps in her chair in front of the fireplace.

“Maric, tell me then. What was the Witch after when she scoured your memories of Velanna.”

“She was looking for information about Arlathan.”

“Ah, of course.” Solas nods once, standing and placing a hand on Ellana’s shoulder. “Ir abelas, lethallan. I hope I have alleviated some of your aches and pains at least.” She does answer and he leaves her for the baths.

When he emerges, it brings a mossy alpine meadow swirling gently behind him. “I will attempt to sort through what we have tomorrow, Maric,” Solas tells him and there is a chorus of agreement. “I have set up extra wards. Please be diligent. I will not be back until late.”

He wanders off somewhere and comes back with the black cloak.

“Ellana?”

She does not answer him.

There is the soft magical sound of the Eluvian opening and sealing again. When she turns and looks, the glowing haze is black... it retreats until the face of the mirror is blank and inert.

_That’s it! I will finally leave this time! Darkspawn be damned._

 

.

 

Despite her anger the night before, Feynriel wakes her in the morning, they have breakfast at the stained glass windows with Maric as a person for the first time. Then they get dressed and go to pick flowers for the shop. It’s the Midsummer’s day festival. Ellana avoids thinking about what else it is. Besides, it’s a big day for the flower shop, and she can’t just leave them high and dry without anything to sell.

It takes every second up until the shop opens to have enough garlands, flower crowns and boutonnieres to sell before opening, and the shop is busy every moment through lunch. Ellana is able to sneak away then, to go to her room and begin packing her things. She uses her old grey shawl to tie her clothes and a parcel of food together for travel. When she goes back downstairs she tries to get past Passion without raising his suspicions too much and avoiding his questions about contracts.

But then comes a knock at the door. She places her bundle under her chair.

“It’s alright. Flesh and bone and safe,” Passion encourages her, and so she goes and opens the door.

There is a carriage outside on Kirkwall’s streets, a woman in a lively pink hat with a warm ivory flower and a bright yellow ribbon squeezed through the door in her many expensive skirts and parasol.

“The shop is the next door, I’m sorry –“

“It seems this is the servant’s quarters?”

Both of them are talking and stop talking at the same time, finally looking at each other.

 _“Ellana!_ _Da’len_ what has happened to you?” The parasol is dropped and the hat falls on the floor and Ellana scooped up into her arms. “I asked Velanna and Merrill of you and they had no idea!” She takes her hands in hers and kisses her cheeks uncaring of wrinkles or moles. Tears stream down her own. “I even put out a reward for any information of your well-being at all, no one has answered me!”

With a shake of her head, Ellana’s nose wrinkle to attempt to keep back her tears. “It’s my fault. I should have told you! I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I felt so... ashamed so I just... left. Wizard Fen’harel took me in and -“

“Fen’harel!”

Mother drops Ellana’s hands, picking up her parasol like a sword. “Has _he_ done this do you, Da’len? That son of a -“

“No, Mamae, he-“

“I don’t care what kind of an accomplished wizard he is, he’s never faced the wrath of a mother, has he?”

Ellana looks up into Mother’s blazing eyes and smiles. She wonders how she could have ever doubted her love for them.

If anything that she’s learned from this ninety-year-old body, is that Mother is still young and beautiful, and there is no reason that she doesn’t deserve happiness in her life after Father. Besides, if she is being honest with herself, she used the opportunity to leave the hat shop as soon as possible, herself. She can’t blame Mother for doing the same. The hat shop was Father’s passion, and perhaps it was all the more reason they wanted to get away from it.

“Mamae,” she repeats, taking Mother’s hand and bringing her to sit down, patting her hands with her own to calm her. “He’s quite nice, actually.”

Which... is true.

“What? He _eats_ women! He steals their souls!”

“No, he hasn’t done one evil magic spell the entire time I’ve been here.”

Which... is also true. Considering how much Ellana has been messing things up for him, he’s been rather kind to her.

“Well if you insist,” Mother grouses. “But that’s probably because of you. You’ve always had your way with difficult people.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she laughs.

“Yes you do! I’ve never been able to get Merrill to listen. You’ve always been able to talk to her down when she gets into those emotional highs and becomes stubborn. It’s prevented her a lot of heartache. And Velanna only gets her way _half_ of the time.”

Ellana looks at the hearth, and finds Passion peering at her just a bit. “Mamae, why did you sell the shop?”

“You weren’t here to pass it down to, Elle,” she answers sadly, with the touch of her hand against her jaw. “I never acquired the skill to make those beautiful hats. Oh, I am a terrible creature, drove you away myself. You could have told me, Elle.”

But Mother almost forgets all about her transgressions when she launches into stories about her new husband. Ellana runs her fingers over the tops over her hands and reminds herself that she’s there over and over, nodding and laughing and smiling and listening.

Then Feynriel walks in grinning, with fingers intertwined with Merrill’s, looking like her old self again. “We’ve closed the shop for today.

“Ellie!”

Her younger sister launches herself at her, and she cries.

“You could have told me,” she says, fingers brushing lines over her Ellana’s back, shushing her. “But’s that’s ok. Everything’s ok.”

Ellana pushes black hair behind Merrill’s pointed ears and brushes her thumbs over her cheek bones and shakes the tears from her face when she smiles.

Then Merrill gets up and hugs their Mother as if she said nothing at all.

The chatter hushes again as Velanna and Wynne walk in, between them a basket. Maric follows, grinning. Ellana stands to greet them and Velanna shovels her uncharacteristically into a tight hug.

After a long moment, she pulls her away to stare directly, and unabashedly, “Don’t you dare do that again.”

The only thing Ellana can muster up is a smile.

The basket is full of a small feast, which is laid out on the tables. Sweet rolls, honeyed cakes, glazed pheasant, grilled vegetables, many on skewers, and a pitcher of sweetened tea. Everyone is speaking to one another and eating, the light from the sun shining on the stone floor. _I can’t leave now, not with my family here. I’ll leave later this evening._ Ellana looks around fondly.

Her gaze falls on Passion again, looking for him and how he ducks beneath the logs in the fireplace. Something draws her to him, though, and she observes a little closer. Her eyes skim the room a little more thoroughly.

Her heart sinks and she makes her way to the Eluvian. “Andruil,” she says, feeling incredibly guilty for the last time she was here.

Andruil’s immaculate brow shoots up into her hairline. “The old hag.”

“You’re here for Solas?”

“None other.”

“He...” she wasn’t sure if he had even come back last night, to be honest, and she wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to check. Besides, she assumed he went to be with Andruil anyway. Well, there’s another theory debunked. Or, not necessarily. Too much standing and thinking, too little talking. “Left late last night and I am not aware if he has returned. But you’re... free to stay and wait if you’d like.”

“Wait? I’ll check myself.”

_Nothing embarrasses this woman._

“He’s not pleasant company if you wake him up,” Ellana warns wryly.

“You would know,” Andruil responds, pointedly.

“I do live here,” she shrugs, “but suit yourself,” and goes back to her family.

Andruil spends an awful long time just staring into the fire after that, and Passion doesn’t lift his head. Ellana guiltily keeps an eye on her even though she feels like she shouldn’t be so distrustful, no matter the odd sort of unladylike posturing the woman does. Or maybe it isn’t posturing? And maybe Ellana has absolutely nothing to say about unladylike.

She makes her a plate of food and brings it over to her anyway. Andruil accepts the plate with no amount of preamble, favoring the meat over the sweets. It’s well into the afternoon now, and Ellana is getting weary with all of this. So she slips quietly into his quarters to even see if he’s there.

Peering over the banister, she finds him sleeping peacefully, and sighs through her nose. There’s no way she’s going to disturb him now. Eyes fluttering over him, his bare scalp, ears devoid of the usual piercings all set on his bedside table, except for the wolf jawbone that sits on his sternum, leather thong loose over pale skin. Fingers loosely fold over a blanket.

Her eyes lift to the windows, the stained glass coloring Numin shades of rose, chartreuse, and aquamarine. He walks across his yard with his arms crossed over his chest looking so much like his father, June, calm, stern despite the person on the other side.

The person on the other side.

Ellana darts forward faster than any 90-year-old has any business moving, grabbing Solas by the shoulders and shaking as hard as she possibly can. He pushes her away. 

“What have you nosed into now?”

“The child, Solas,” she gasps.

It’s all she needs to say. He’s out of bed and throwing on clothes without mind to her presence and yanking her by the wrist downstairs again. Once he sees Andruil in the corner nibbling at her meal, he drops her wrist as if she burns him, and it sort of hurts, she can admit, but Ellana knows, and it’s not so much of a surprise, really.

He whips around and grabs her shoulders, forcing her to look into those blue-grey marble eyes. “Don’t leave Passion,” his voice is almost a whisper, and it’s a low raspy one at that. “Promise me, Ellana.”

“I promise.”

“Good.”

And with that he goes.

“There’s no reason for me to stick around,” Andruil shrugs with one shoulder. “How about I try one of those other doors.”

“I... don’t know...”

“Just to hang out until he gets back?”

Her mouth opens to say something to protest, something like safety and something else like Solas holding her responsible if she is hurt, and another pang of guilt comes over her as she looks back over her friends and family as they continue to ignore the woman and the woman keeps herself apart... she sighs. She wonders which is the safest door.

With the press of her hand against the glass, she brings it to green, stepping out with Andruil into the tall grass of Halamshiral with her. “There’s a lot to see out here.”

“Looks like it. Perhaps there’s interesting game to hunt.”

“Just... don’t go that way.” She points East. “The Wilds are that way and the Witch is always waiting for someone to grab. I’m sure he won’t be too long.”

“Sure.”

Ellana gives Andruil a long look as she slowly begins in the opposite direction, and then turns back inside.

With the warmth and smiles of her family around her, Ellana sinks into friendly conversation and keeps an eye on the door and Passion just to be sure. For a while, because she said she would. They laugh and tell stores and catch up.

Passion, however, in the hearth, blazes blue and sputters. Everyone stops and watches him, reeling back, afraid. “The Witch!”

Ellana rushes over. “What should I do, Passion?”

“He told you stay with me! You should stay.” His voice crackles in his fire as he wavers.

“But Andruil is outside.”

“She isn’t.”

“You have to open the door! I have to go out and find her and bring her back! The Witch probably has her!”

“You don’t, Solas told you to stay. He can get her when he gets back.”

“Solas likes Andruil, he’ll have my hide if she’s hurt!” She practically snarls at him. “You know it’s true. I’d rather face her than his anger.”

“He’s a coward.”

She laughs, loud enough to startle everyone who has been whispering among themselves, speculating. “A coward of the witch,” she says lowly, “but of me? Not a chance. Andruil will come back, he’ll be rid of me, happily ever after.”

It sort of looks like Passion’s eyes widens with panic, then he leans and looks at the Eluvian. “I need you to stay, Ellana. What will I do without you?”

“You’ll be fine. Be powerful and protect everyone until I get back, alright?”

“You have a promise to keep. You said you wouldn’t leave me.”

“I know.” She nods, grabs her stick, clamors to the Eluvian, and out of it. Once outside she looks for Andruil once around the mansion. Of course the girl is nowhere to be found in the twisting forests. With a sigh, she points herself East towards to Wilds, and lifts her stick in both hands, and says to her shoes, “take me to Mythal, take me to Flemeth.”

She takes a step and –swoosh! The entire forest and maybe some water goes by. She isn’t sure what else. Swears she even goes through some buildings. Even over a mountain or something or other. Could have sworn she stepped on cattle. She doesn’t want to think that she did. Where she ends up, she’s not exactly sure, not that it matters, actually. Turning, it is a clearing, small enough, deep in the Wilds. Before her a statue of a dragon winged and headed woman towering over her, flanked by dragons with their wings curled around them. Beside those, howling wolves.

Turning, turning, she sighs. Mythal isn’t _here_ , neither is Andruil. There is an inscription, though, and it is as old as the rest of the place is. It’s hard to make out. Not only that, it’s in the native tongue. She’s sure Solas would be a lot more suited to the task.

“We few who travel far, call to me, and I will come. Without mercy, without fear. Cry havoc in the moonlight, let the fire of vengeance burn, the cause is clear.”

She sighs again and shakes her head. This isn’t really what she was expecting for Mythal’s lair, honestly. Not a pretty glade in the middle of what ended up to be an actually pretty forest and an awfully poetic inspiring chant.

“You called?”

Ellana whips around to see Mythal’s arms crossed over her chest, mouth frowning at her.

“I’m looking for Andruil, you see. If you’d just give her to me, then I could take her to Solas and –“

“Now for what reason would I do that?” asks the talon thin eyebrow that arches in a line over an incredulous expression. “I wouldn’t take him as much of a coward to send you, so why are you here?”

“Well, _I_ am the one who lost Andruil and –“

This makes Mythal laugh good and really, when Ellana thinks about what she said, she understands why she doesn’t take too much offense this time. Fingers close around her wrists, and drag her back to one of the statues. She struggles, but they are much stronger that she is. They stretch unnaturally about when she tries to pry them off, she digs her heels into the dirt, but they get her to the statue anyway, and they use their own bodies to bind her to it. “How convenient of you to come to me, dear Ellana.”

“What?”

“It is a matter of time your Fen’harel comes to fetch you.”

“No, he won’t do anything of the sort. He knows better than that.”

Mythal nods and smiles as if she is keeping a secret to herself that Ellana does not know, moving over to the alter. “Whatever you must tell yourself.”

Ellana wonders how she missed it, the thing at the bottom of the statue. Maybe because that’s what it looks like? A thing? Well, at first it did. It has feathers across the shoulders, and buckles that are left unclasped, a high collar with gold trim, long leather lapels. It sits limply, and she wonders if he is dead, or sleeping in a very awkward position and leans forward against her captors to see. Pale hands, and she thinks of pale skin, and blanches quite visibly, practically retches at the recognition.

The head is missing.

“You put him back together this instant!”

The Witch grins. “Magnificent, is it not? A perfect mix between Royal Wizard Anders and Prince Seamus. Ah, there are other’s in there too, but the heads were not to my liking. I sold them long ago. Had no need for them. No, my little hat maker’s daughter. You will lure my wolf for me, and he will make the most magnificent head. A perfect King and I will be Queen.”

Ellana groans. “What’s wrong with you? You’re nuts! What are you even doing? Head of _who?_ To do _what?_ What is this, Diamondback of body parts?”

“We will use his demon to control him, no bluffing needed.”

Then she remembers, _Don’t leave Passion. Promise me, Ellana._

_Fenedhis._

Ellana wiggles her walking stick, making Mythal frown. She pulls against the guards around her arms and ankles and waist, holding her tight against the wolf statue. Her shoulders pull free before they are wrapped again and snapped back against the stone, knocking the wind from her lung in a soft rush of air.

“You are making things difficult for yourself. Relax and wait until he gets here,” she raises a hand, the reigns pull tighter, making it hard for her to breathe. “I don’t want to _really_ hurt you.”

There’s something in her voice that makes it sound like she actually would like to really hurt her.

A lot happens right then, because something comes through the trees with a lot of noise and it collides with Mythal in a flurry of green, red, and white. There is as much foliage from the forest around them that follows the momentum of movement of the whoever-it-is as it is the ground and her hair and clothes and magic. There’s fizzing and whirring and snapping and growling, and really- Ellana isn’t as much interested in the fighting as she is using the distraction as an opportunity for her escape, using her stick to smack away at the globby-stretchy things around her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Solas arrive. It’s hard to miss him, because he’s in direct contrast to everything else. Black from head to toe. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, watching Mythal and whatever-it-is dish it out, and doesn’t really bother to come her way to help. It seems eventually he grows tired of it anyway, deflating, and pushes the two away from each other with a small gust of wind.

Solas approaches a bit like a wounded animal, shoulders hunched slightly. “I can’t forgive you. This is the end, Mythal,” he says, sadly, sternly. His head bows farther, fingers reaching out to hers. “I’m sorry, friend.”

And, it’s the strangest thing, because Mythal, for all the people in the world she would have never thought... softens. She softens and curls and takes his hand and meets her forehead to his. “I am, too.”

When Ellana looks up again, there’s a pile of dust on the floor where Mythal was standing. The restraints are gone, and her feet are carrying her immediately over to the headless body.

“Ellana...” his voice is tight and certainly angry. She needs to find Andruil. All will be well now that Mythal is dead anyway, right? She turns, and freezes, the darkspawn behind her. “I explicitly asked you-“

“Thank you, without your enchantment I would not have made it in time,” it says, and she blinks. “I had been travelling and travelling but your help revived me enough to make it here. I’ve made it to my body at last.”

“Well, it’s sort of, sort of not,” she says, and tries not to tremble or look at its face. “There’s a couple of different bodies in there. We can work it out. You will be ok.”

“You have faith in me.”

“I do.” She smiles, however fake it is. “Let’s find Andruil and get out of here.”

“She’s not here, Ellana. I’ve been attempting to tell you this entire time,” she hears Solas say from somewhere beyond the Darkspawn.

“Huh?”

“Please gather the body and follow us back with it,” Solas instructs. The Darkspawn nods. Then Solas curls his fingers around Ellana’s bicep to bring her arm into his, tucking it into the crook of his elbow. With his hands free, he conjures a wind to carry their feet as they walk.

Eventually their feet rotates in a loping circle. “You broke your promise to me. And in record time.”

“I’m sorry...” her eyes lift to him, running on the tips of her toes for a few paces. “Andruil got bored after you left and said she liked hunting! I took her outside to the Emerald Graves to explore until you returned. I...” she sighs, shaking her head. “I just wanted to make sure she felt welcome after I kicked her out last time. I know how you like her.”

“Ellana, Andruil is Mythal’s fire demon.”

And this is the bit of information that she, perhaps, needed to know all along. Perhaps, she could have figured it out on her own if she had only stopped and thought about it at any point. It is why, of course, he explicitly asked her to stay with Passion, because Passion is his and he needs her to protect Passion. All of a sudden, her stomach feels very, very pale. “It’s because I’m the eldest. I’m a failure!”

“No.” It is clipped, angry, and firm, it sends a shiver down her spine, and his fingers squeeze hers, leaving her wondering when they became intertwined like that again. His other hand grasps her chin and her eyes open, finding herself looking into those glass eyes again. “No more of that. Agreed?”

She can only whisper, squirming out of his hold with the flush of her cheeks. “Yes.”

“You need to think before you act. Magic is not two plus two equals four, often it’s four equals one or one equals eight. Intent matters, Ellana.”

Mustering an embarrassed laugh in spite of herself, “Maybe magic lessons later?”

“We have a second issue.”

“Oh...”

“You are much too kind. I was counting on you being too jealous to let Andruil stay inside, let alone near Passion.”

“You, what? What a terrible thing to do to me, Fen’harel. ”

He smiles his agreement, nodding. “Terrible, but necessary. How else was I supposed to be convinced to save everyone? ”

“You didn’t save anyone,” she laughs at him.

“Oh but I will, as soon as we get back.”

“You mean, you ran away so hard that you ran right into it?”

“I must arrange things that way it seems,” he smiles. “Particularly when facing down a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Mythal and I were friends for thousands of years. Her husband grew jealous of our friendship and murdered her. In order to save her life, I captured a fire demon and exchanged her heart for its ability to prolong her lifespan. Eventually it consumed her. I... do not know what the being she became was. There were times of lucidity but she descended into madness. It was time.”

“I’m sorry, Solas.”

 _An honest wind,_ Ellana thinks. _It’s fulfilled, now._

“It was my doing, and my burden to finish. Think; what did it touch?”

There was a time when Andruil tried to take something from the castle... what was it?

“The pelt on the back of my chair.”

Gently, he places her in front of the door to the mansion, the wind behind them slowing down to a light breeze. Upon entering, Solas fade steps to her chair immediately, picking up the pelt. It bursts in his hands, Andruil materializing before their eyes.

“She’s dead, Andruil.”

“Lucky me,” she laughs. “Now I can make myself a new body out of new parts.”

Then Andruil reaches into the hearth and grabs Passion from it. He looks absolutely terrified, grasped in her hand like that. “Help!” he calls weakly.

Andruil laughs at him. “Help? Sure, you can help me. Make my new human do as I say.” She closes her fingers over him, squeezing her hand over the lump until the skin of her knuckles stretch taught.  

Both Solas and Passion scream.

Solas faints.

“He’s faking it,” Andruil rolls her eyes.

“He’s not!” Passion yelps. “His heart is soft!”

Meanwhile, Ellana has learned something. She’s thinking. Lifting her stick slowly, she whispers, “Stick, beat Andruil as hard as you can, but do not hurt anyone else.” With a deep breath, she inches over as close as she can and smacks her across the fingers.

Andruil screams, fingers dropping Passion. Ellana abandons her stick to dive for Passion. The enchantment is strong, and her stick continues to beat Andruil as Ellana finds and cradles Passion to her chest. “Are you going to be ok?”

“I think so.”

“I’m going to have to break the contract. It’s the only way to save both of you.”

“Hurry.”

Passion is almost an ember, no longer glowing red but dark smoldering violet, and the lump he clings to is bruised and swollen. Carefully, Ellana grasps the edge of him, and with fullness in her heart, with _passion_ whispers, “Live a happy thousand years!” With a pull, she plucks him from it.

There’s a gasp she feels and she breathes with it, a light that warms her face. “Ellana you did it!”

She smiles.

“I feel so light! You’ve saved me!” The voice gets farther away as it happily cheers and flies away, “I’m free!”

Behind her, Andruil grabs Feynriel and pulls him between herself and the stick and the stick stops hitting her. It’s catching on fire because she’s just that hot, and somewhere in her head she knows she wasn’t making it up when she thought the woman was a smidge too hot to be normal.

“Make sure she doesn’t get out!” she yells, and everyone starts to block doors and windows. Wynne apparently always has a staff on her back and so does Velanna these days. Merrill finds a pole and Maric finds a skillet.

The stick tries to whap Andruil again. Ellana doesn’t have much time. She looks down at Solas, and his heart in her hands, faintly beating. One hand feels for her own heart on her chest, in the middle but slightly left-ish. She lays it there on his, places both hands over it, and presses.

“Go in! Go in and beat strong! Be healthy and live!”

It warms her palms, and sinks beneath his skin, somehow, and he sputters, sucks in air, and coughs, groans. Rolling over on his face. “Fenedhis lasa. Get off of my back.”

“I’m not sitting on you, _Fen’harel_.”

“Why is my chest so heavy?”

She laughs. “A heart’s a heavy burden. Get up, quickly! Andruil is still here!”

He grunts and pulls himself up as fast as he can, which isn’t too quickly, really, but fast enough. It seems he knows what to do as soon as he stands, anyway. Putting out a hand, he says a few words in whatever fancy ancient tongue she knows they share but she doesn’t know enough of and his fingers close into a fist. A clap of thunder makes everyone cover their ears.

Andruil looks frightened for the first time. “You don’t want to do that, you’re in love with me, remember?”

Solas laughs, darkly. “You’ve been looking for a new heart this entire time. Your life has been long enough.”

In his hand is a familiar little bumpy blob. He crushes it between his fingers, and it crumbles to dust. In that instant, Andruil does, also.

A breath of relief passes over the room. Solas smooths a hand over the expanse of his scalp. He turns to Ellana then, who looks up at him and smiles. They don’t really notice the missing headless body or Maric or darkspawn. They also don’t notice the blonde man with the ponytail and the feathered pauldrons, high collar, long leather coat, and crooked smile. They certainly don’t notice the raven haired, blue-green eyed, blue-green uniformed young man with a strong jawline. Because, why would they?

“I had to break the contract,” Ellana states to Solas. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s quite alright. It is for the best. We would not want to end up like Mythal and Andruil, after all,” he smiles in return, sadly.

Seamus and Anders smile and shake hands. “We should be getting back.”

Seamus goes to Ellana’s Mother. “I want to thank you for your hospitality.”

“Oh, that would be Ellana. She’s the Lady of the house.”

“Or will be,” Wynne interjects, eyes fixed on Solas and Ellana.

Anders offers Velanna his arm. “I’m sorry, I think my memories of you are not my own at all.”

“After what you’ve been through, I think I can make an exception.”

“Let’s start again. Do you like cats?”

“May I ask you –“ Solas reaches to take Ellana’s hand, presses her fingers to his lips. “Why would such a lovely lady such as yourself be afraid of me?”

“What are you talking about?” Ellana answers his question with and question, and blushes delightfully.

Solas smiles handsomely. “Summer’s Day, of course.”

“Have I enchanted you this entire time, Solas?”

“Now, what kind of gentleman would I be if I answered otherwise?”

“An honest one.”

He chuckles.

If either of them were paying attention, they’d notice Feynriel, Seamus and Anders were trying to get Solas’ attention and Velanna, Merrill and Mother was vying for Ellana’s.

“Solas, I want to learn that spell!”

“Messere, thanks for rescuing me from the Witch of the Wilds.”

“I would like to apologize for attempting to bite you on several occasions while I was a dog. It was certainly inappropriate...”

“Ellana, I think this is the missing Prince!”

“I SAID, the spell is off of you, Ellana! You’re back to normal!”

But Ellana is gazing into those impossibly blue eyes whose depths are as an ocean. They churn like the storm in the current, a myriad of cobalt blues swirls and its frothing whites at the edges that look down at her with...

The pad of his thumb presses to the corner of her lips. He is smiling wider than he has smiled in centuries and his heart is full and beating and oh he _knows._ His voice is huskily pulled into a whisper. “Losing you would...”

“You don’t have to lose me, Solas.”

“Passion came back!” Feynriel’s voice breaks through the fog at last, and they turn to look at the hearth, where Passion sits.

“You didn’t have to come back, Passion!” But Ellana reaches out for the little blobby kind of heart shaped spirit anyway, and he flops into her arms. Pressing a kiss to the top of his head, she grins, “We’re glad to have you anyway.”

Passion burns a little brighter.

 

.

 

“Have you ever looked at the flower shop sign?”

“Yes? What of it?”

“What does it say?”

“It has your name on it.”

Solas hums in his usual way, the sort of sound when she’s wrong.

“It does. Wolfe’s Flower Shop.”

But she’s looking at him when she says it, and he gives her that crooked smile that says more than words. The twinkle of those eyes reminds of mischief, and she wonders what he’s up to now, what mess she has to clean up today. Her brow furrows and she turns to look at the sign.

_E. Wolfe’s Flower Shop_

He feels her breath catch against his chest, yellow dress tangling around his legs in the morning breeze. The cresting sunshine catches on the red-gold of her hair, just at the edges like a halo. Grey never did suit her vibrancy, he thinks. Leaning back, she looks at him with those brown eyes flecked with gold and he smiles.

“This hasn’t always been this way, has it?”

“No,” he answers honestly, and bends to a knee. She watches carefully, assessing what he is doing with a narrowed eye.

There isn’t fan faire, because he knows she wouldn’t want it, and the streets are bare today. There isn’t diamonds or rubies or myriads of gemstones, because she doesn’t need them. There are no balls or carriages, orchestras, chandeliers, fancy skirts or hats, presents or dinners. It is them and the sunrise, cobblestone and his smile, a yellow dress at last, and a gold band that he slips onto a finger. The fourth one on the left hand.

“Marry me, vhenan.”

When she throws her arms about his neck and kisses him, he takes it as a yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for hanging out with me on this one, guys! <3 you!! I've enjoyed you, and I've enjoyed writing this. I may do an epilouge-y chapter if I get any prompts. If you have any ideas, hmu on my tumblr @ lecherysweet :3


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